Qualcomm Q4 Revenue Falls 8% as Car Chip Sales Hit a Record
Qualcomm's fiscal Q4 revenue fell 8% to $10.32 billion as handset sales dropped 26%, while automotive revenue jumped 89% to a record $1.99 billion.
Qualcomm said on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, that revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter fell 8% to $10.32 billion from a year earlier, as sales of smartphone chips dropped. Automotive chip revenue rose 89% to a record $1.99 billion, which the company described as its first $2 billion quarter.
This story is based on the company's earnings release; we did not find a confirmed after-hours share price move at the time of writing.
The quarter in numbers
Fiscal Q4 ended September 27, 2026. Figures are from Qualcomm's release.
Measure | Q4 fiscal 2026 | Change vs. a year earlier |
|---|---|---|
Revenue (GAAP) | $10.32 billion | -8% |
Revenue (non-GAAP) | $10.44 billion | -7% |
Diluted EPS (GAAP) | $1.17 | vs. a loss of $2.89 |
Diluted EPS (non-GAAP) | $2.17 | -28% |
Handset chip revenue | $5.14 billion | -26% |
Automotive revenue | $1.99 billion | +89% |
IoT revenue | $1.89 billion | +4% |
Licensing (QTL) revenue | $1.30 billion | -7% |
The year-ago GAAP loss included a large tax charge, so the GAAP comparison is not a like-for-like measure of business performance. Non-GAAP figures leave out some items; our guide on how to read an earnings report explains the difference.
Phones down, everything else up
The headline story is a shift in where Qualcomm makes its money. Handset chips, still its biggest business, shrank by about a quarter in the quarter. Cars and connected devices grew. CEO Cristiano Amon said in the release that combined automotive and IoT revenue rose 36% from a year earlier and that fiscal 2027 "marks the start of our non-handset revenue inflection, including the ramp of our Data Center business."
Qualcomm said it expects non-handset revenue to grow more than 60% in fiscal 2027 and reiterated a $5 billion data center revenue target for that year. It also said it announced a multi-generation AI data center product collaboration with Amazon, and renewed long-term licensing agreements with Apple, Huawei and Transsion.
Full year and outlook
For fiscal 2026, revenue fell 3% to $43.12 billion. Non-GAAP EPS fell 12% to $10.54. GAAP EPS rose to $12.70, helped by a one-time $5.7 billion tax benefit.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Qualcomm guided to:
- Revenue of $10.4 billion to $11.2 billion
- Non-GAAP EPS of $2.15 to $2.35
- GAAP EPS of $1.03 to $1.23
The company said the guidance includes its data center business.
Cash returned to shareholders
Qualcomm returned about $2.0 billion in the quarter: $1.01 billion in buybacks and $987 million in dividends of $0.92 a share. For the full year it returned $11.67 billion. Our dividend calculator shows what a given payout means for your own holdings.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.
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