What you need to know
- Qualcomm announced it made $10.4 billion in revenue during the most recent quarter.
- Headset sales were up following partnerships with Samsung and Xiaomi to power their latest phones.
- Qualcomm will announce its next flagship Snapdragon chipset in September, ahead of the last calendar quarter of 2025.
- Xiaomi will be the first Android OEM to launch a device powered by the upcoming chipset.
Qualcomm announced its financial earnings for the third quarter of its fiscal year (or the second quarter of the calendar year). The company managed to just hit double-digit growth with $10.4 billion in revenue, up 10% from the same period last year.
Qualcomm’s QCT division, which consists of its chipset sales and makes up the bulk of its revenue, saw headset sales experience modest growth to $6.32 billion. Meanwhile, automotive and IoT saw larger 21% and 24% growth, respectively, thanks to the company’s push for AI processing, as noted by Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon.
“Another quarter of strong growth in QCT Automotive and IoT revenues further validates our diversification strategy and confidence in achieving our long-term revenue targets,” said Amon in a statement on Wednesday.
“Our leadership in AI processing, high-performance and low-power computing, and advanced connectivity positions us to become the industry platform of choice as AI gains scale at the edge.”
During the call, Amon highlighted its partnership with leading Android OEMs such as Samsung and Xiaomi, with 124 smartphone designs shipped or announced powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset earlier this year.
The company also extended its partnership with Xiaomi to power multiple generations of devices for the massive Chinese market. It noted that Xiaomi will be “the first OEM to launch with our next Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, which comes out over the next couple of months.” This isn’t a huge surprise, as Xiaomi is often among the first to announce a new phone with the latest Snapdragon chipset.
Furthermore, Amon stated how the current Snapdragon 8 Elite will “set the pace” for AI performance, such as with Galaxy AI on Samsung phones.
“For example, Samsung noted that 70% of Galaxy S25 users are utilizing Galaxy AI, and usage of Google Gemini AI has nearly tripled among S25 users compared to the S24,” he said during the call. “Looking ahead, we expect the range of on-device agentic AI use cases will continue to expand and reshape the mobile industry.”
Beyond smartphones, Qualcomm also highlighted other devices, such as XR and wearables. The company is powering as many as 19 designs for smart glasses, and noted how demand for the Meta smart glasses has continued to increase as the new Oakley HSTN smart glasses hit store shelves.
Looking forward, Qualcomm is preparing to launch its next flagship chipset, tentatively called the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2, at the end of September during its Snapdragon Summit, and the company appears very excited by it, as noted by Akash Palkhiwala, Qualcomm’s chief financial officer.
“As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we’re going to announce our new chip at the end of September, and we are already working with several OEMs for [the] launch of new devices based on a tremendous interest in it. And what you are seeing is really people getting ready for [the] launch of new devices.”
