Qualcomm president and CEO Cristiano Amon speaks about Qualcomm’s technology for automakers at a news conference during CES 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 4, 2022.
Here’s how the chipmaker did for the quarter ending on June 25:
Earnings: $1.87 per share, adjusted, versus $1.81 per share expected by Refinitiv consensus estimates.
Revenue: $8.44 billion, adjusted, versus $8.5 billion expected by Refinitiv consensus estimates.
Qualcomm said it expected earnings of between $1.80 and $2.00 per share on between $8.1 billion and $8.9 billion in sales in the fourth quarter, short of Refinitiv consensus expectations of $1.91 in earnings on $8.7 billion in revenue.
Net income during the quarter fell to $1.8 billion, or $1.60 per share, a staggering 52% drop from the $3.73 billion or $3.29 per share reported at the same time last year.
Qualcomm is exposed to the slumping smartphone industry because it makes the processors at the heart of most high-end Android devices and many lower-end phones.
Shipments of new devices are expected by analysts to decline in 2023 and Qualcomm repeated that it expects handset units to decline a “high-single digit percentage” this year, partially due to a slow China recovery. However, Qualcomm said it sees growth in handsets yet again starting in the holiday season.
QCT, Qualcomm’s biggest division that sells processors for smartphones, cars, and other smart devices, reported $7.17 billion in sales, down 24% on an annual basis.
Handset chip sales are the biggest part of QCT, and those declined 25% year-over-year to $5.26 billion.
The company’s automotive business, which sells chips and software for autonomous cars, was a bright spot, rising 13% to $434 million in revenue during the quarter.
However, the company’s internet of things business, which makes lower-cost chips for low-power devices and industrial uses, declined 24% to $1.48 billion in sales. Qualcomm’s Internet of Things business also includes chip sales to Meta for its Quest VR headsets.
Qualcomm’s profitable licensing business, QTL, declined 19% to $1.23 billion in revenue.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon highlighted the chipmaker’s AI strategy in a statement as semiconductor firms seek to capitalize on the industry focus on the chips needed to run software like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. He said that Qualcomm’s ability to run AI models on phones, instead of on cloud servers, gives the company a chance for an “inflection point” that could drive growth in the future.
“In summary, we are uniquely positioned to help shape and capitalize on the upcoming own device Gen AI opportunity,” Amon said.
Qualcomm said it had reduced costs by 5% so far this year relative to its spending in 2022. In June, it cut 415 jobs at its San Diego headquarters, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Qualcomm said that it will implement more cost savings program in the first half of next year.
Qualcomm said it paid $893 million in dividends and repurchased $400 million in stock during the quarter.
Correction: An earlier version didn’t indicate that Qualcomm’s quarterly revenue of $8.44 billion was adjusted.
Anne Wojcicki attends the WSJ Magazine Style & Tech Dinner in Atherton, California, on March 15, 2023.
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23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki and New Mountain Capital have submitted a proposal to take the embattled genetic testing company private, according to a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wojcicki and New Mountain have offered to acquire all of 23andMe’s outstanding shares in cash for $2.53 per share, or an equity value of approximately $74.7 million. The company’s stock closed at $2.42 on Friday with a market cap of about $65 million.
The offer comes after a turbulent year for 23andMe, with the stock losing more than 80% of its value in 2024. In January, the company announced plans to explore strategic alternatives, which could include a sale of the company or its assets, a restructuring or a business combination.
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23andMe has a special committee of independent directors in place to evaluate potential paths forward. The company appointed three new independent directors to its board in October after all seven of its previous directors abruptly resigned the prior month. The special committee has to approve Wojcicki and New Mountain’s proposal.
“We believe that our Proposal provides compelling value and immediate liquidity to the Company’s public stockholders,” Wojcicki and Matthew Holt, managing director and president of private equity at New Mountain, wrote in a letter to the special committee on Thursday.
Wojcicki previously submitted a proposal to take the company private for 40 cents per share in July, but it was rejected by the special committee, in part because the members said it lacked committed financing and did not provide a premium to the closing price at the time.
Wojcicki and New Mountain are willing to provide secured debt financing to fund 23andMe’s operations through the transaction’s closing, the filing said. New Mountain is based in New York and has $55 billion of assets under management, according to its website.
Shares of Hims & Hers Health tumbled more than 23% on Friday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that the shortage of semaglutide injection products has been resolved.
Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic. Those medications are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1s, and demand for the treatments has exploded in recent years. As a result, digital health companies such as Hims & Hers have been prescribing compounded semaglutide as an alternative for patients who are navigating volatile supply hurdles and insurance obstacles.
Compounded drugs are custom-made alternatives to brand-name drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs, and compounders are allowed to produce them when brand-name treatments are in shortage. The FDA doesn’t review the safety and efficacy of compounded products.
Hims & Hers began offering compounded semaglutide to patients in May, and it owns compounding pharmacies that produce the medications.
Compounded medications are typically much cheaper than their branded counterparts. Hims & Hers sells compounded semaglutide for less than $200 per month, while Ozempic and Wegovy both cost around $1,000 per month without insurance.
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The FDA said Friday that it will start taking action against compounders for violations in the next 60 to 90 days, depending on the type of facility, in order to “avoid unnecessary disruption to patient treatment.”
“Now that the FDA has determined the drug shortage for semaglutide has been resolved, we will continue to offer access to personalized treatments as allowed by law to meet patient needs,” Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum posted Friday on X. “We’re also closely monitoring potential future shortages, as Novo Nordisk stated two weeks ago that it would continue to have ‘capacity limitations’ and ‘expected continued periodic supply constraints and related drug shortage notifications.'”
Him & Hers’ weight loss offerings have been a massive hit with investors. Shares of the company climbed more than 200% last year, and the stock is already up more than 100% this year despite Friday’s move.
Even before it added compounded GLP-1s to its portfolio, the company said in its 2023 fourth-quarter earnings call that it expects its weight loss program to bring in more than $100 million in revenue by the end of 2025.
Despite the turbulent regulatory landscape, Hims & Hers has showed no signs of slowing down.
On Friday, the company announced it has acquired a U.S.-based peptide facility that will “further verticalize the company’s long-term ability to deliver personalized medications.” Hims & Hers will explore advances across metabolic optimization, recovery science, biological resistances, cognitive performance and preventative health through the acquisition, the company said.
That move comes just days after Hims & Hers also bought Trybe Labs, the New Jersey-based at-home lab testing facility. Trybe Labs will allow Hims & Hers to perform at-home blood draws and more comprehensive pretreatment testing.
Hims & Hers did not disclose the terms of either deal.
Tesla models Y and 3 are displayed at a Tesla dealership in Corte Madera, California, on Dec. 20, 2024.
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Tesla is voluntarily recalling 376,241vehicles in the U.S. to correct an issue with failing power-assisted steering systems, according to records posted to the website of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
In a safety recall report posted on the NHTSA website, Tesla said the recall includes Model 3 and Model Y vehicles that were manufactured for sale in the U.S. from Feb. 28, 2023, to October 11, 2023, and that were equipped with a certain older software release.
The records said printed circuit boards in the steering systems in affected vehicles could become overstressed, causing the power-assist steering to fail in some cases when a Tesla vehicle rolled to a stop and then accelerated.
When electronic power-assist steering systems fail in a Tesla, drivers need to exert more force to steer their cars, which can increase the risk of a collision.
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Tesla told the vehicle safety regulator that it was not aware of any crashes, injuries or deaths related to the power steering failures, and that it was offering an over-the-air software update as a remedy.
The recall follows an earlier related probe and voluntary recall in China concerning the same systems.
President Donald Trump has appointed Tesla CEO Elon Musk to lead a team that is slashing the federal government workforce, and in some cases, regulations and entire agencies. Those cuts already affected the NHTSA, an agency Musk has long seen as standing in the way of some of his ambitions at Tesla.
The regulator has been engaged in a yearslong investigation into safety defects in the systems that Tesla markets currently as its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) options. The features do not make Tesla cars into robotaxis. They require a human driver ready to steer or brake at any time.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Musk’s team has led mass firings at the NHTSA, reducing the agency’s workforce and capacity to investigate companies including Tesla by about 10%.