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.
White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) on March 9, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Tesla shares fell in premarket trade on Monday after CEO Elon Musk announced plans to form a new political party.
The stock was down 7.13% by 4:27 a.m. E.T.
Musk said over the weekend that the party would be called the “America Party” and could focus “on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts.” He suggested this would be “enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people.”
Now tech billionaire’s reinvolvement in the political arena is making investors nervous.
“Very simply Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, said in a note on Sunday.
“While the core Musk supporters will back Musk at every turn no matter what, there is broader sense of exhaustion from many Tesla investors that Musk keeps heading down the political track.”
Musk’s previous political foray earned him Trump’s praise in the early days, but he has since drawn the ire of the U.S. president.
The two have clashed over various areas of policy, including Trump’s spending bill which Musk has said would increase America’s debt burden. Musk has taken issue to particular cuts to tax credits and support for solar and wind energy and electric vehicles.
Trump on Sunday called Musk’s move to form a political party “ridiculous,” adding that the Tesla boss had gone “completely off the rails.”
Musk is contending with more than just political turmoil. Tesla reported a 14% year-on-year decline in car deliveries in the second quarter, missing expectations. The company is facing rising competition, especially in its key market, China.
Jonathan Ross, chief executive officer of Groq Inc., during the GenAI Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, May 30, 2024.
David Paul | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Artificial intelligence semiconductor startup Groq announced Monday it has established its first data center in Europe as it steps up its international expansion.
Groq, which is backed by investment arms of Samsung and Cisco, said the data center will be located in Helsinki, Finland and is in partnership with Equinix.
Groq is looking to take advantage of rising demand for AI services in Europe following other U.S. firms which have also ramped up investment in the region. The Nordics in particular is a popular location for the data facilities as the region has easy access to renewable energy and cooler climates. Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in Europe and signed several infrastructure deals, including data centers.
Groq, which is valued at $2.8 billion, designs a chip that the company calls a language processing unit (LPU). It is designed for inferencing rather training. Inferencing is when a pre-trained AI model interprets live data to come up with a result, much like the answers that are produced by popular chatbots.
While Nvidia has a stranglehold on the chips required for training huge AI models with its graphics processing units (GPUs), there is a swathe of startups hoping to take a slice of the pie when it comes to inferencing. SambaNova; Ampere, a company SoftBank is in the process of purchasing; Cerebras and Fractile, are all looking to join the AI inference race.
European politicians have been pushing the notion of sovereign AI — where data centers must be located in the region. Data centers that are located closer to users also help improve the speed of services.
Global data center builder Equinix connects different cloud providers together, such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, making it easier for businesses to have multiple vendors. Groq’s LPUs will be installed inside the Equinix data center allowing businesses to access Groq’s inference capabilities via Equinix.
Groq currently has data centers in the U.S. and Canada and Saudi Arabia with its technology.
Don’t miss Groq CEO Jonathan Ross on Squawk Box Europe at 7:45 a.m. London time.
Hidden among the majestic canyons of the Utah desert, about 7 miles from the nearest town, is a small research facility meant to prepare humans for life on Mars.
The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization that runs the Mars Desert Research Station, or MDRS, invited CNBC to shadow one of its analog crews on a recent mission.
“MDRS is the best analog astronaut environment,” said Urban Koi, who served as health and safety officer for Crew 315. “The terrain is extremely similar to the Mars terrain and the protocols, research, science and engineering that occurs here is very similar to what we would do if we were to travel to Mars.”
SpaceX CEO and Mars advocate Elon Musk has said his company can get humans to Mars as early as 2029.
The 5-person Crew 315 spent two weeks living at the research station following the same procedures that they would on Mars.
David Laude, who served as the crew’s commander, described a typical day.
“So we all gather around by 7 a.m. around a common table in the upper deck and we have breakfast,” he said. “Around 8:00 we have our first meeting of the day where we plan out the day. And then in the morning, we usually have an EVA of two or three people and usually another one in the afternoon.”
An EVA refers to extravehicular activity. In NASA speak, EVAs refer to spacewalks, when astronauts leave the pressurized space station and must wear spacesuits to survive in space.
“I think the most challenging thing about these analog missions is just getting into a rhythm. … Although here the risk is lower, on Mars performing those daily tasks are what keeps us alive,” said Michael Andrews, the engineer for Crew 315.