About QUALCOMM Inc

QUALCOMM Incorporated operates as a global leader in the development and commercialization of foundational technologies for the wireless industry, including 3G (third generation), 4G (fourth generation) and 5G (fifth generation) wireless technologies and processor technologies, including high-performance, low-power computing and on-device artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The company's technologies and products are used in mobile devices and other wireless products. The company's inventions have helped power the growth in smartphones and other cellular enabled devices. As a connected processor company, the company is scaling its innovations using its one technology roadmap to enable the connected intelligent edge (the next generation of smart devices) across industries and applications beyond handsets, including automotive and the internet of things (IoT). In IoT, the company's inventions have helped power growth in industries and applications, such as consumer (including computing, voice and music and extended reality (XR)), edge networking (including mobile broadband and wireless access points) and industrial (including handhelds, retail, transportation and logistics and utilities). In automotive, the company's connectivity, digital cockpit and advanced driver assistance and automated driving (ADAS/AD) platforms are helping to connect the car to its environment and the cloud, create unique in-cabin experiences and enables a comprehensive assisted and automated driving solution. The company derives revenues principally from sales of integrated circuit products, including its Snapdragon family of highly-integrated, system-based solutions, and licensing of its intellectual property, including patents and other rights. The foundational technologies the company invents help power the modern mobile experience, impacting how the world connects, computes, and communicates. The company collaborates across the ecosystem, including with manufacturers, operators, developers, system integrators, cloud providers, test tool vendors, service providers, governments, and industry standards organizations, to enable a global environment of continued progress and growth. The company has played and continue to play a leading role in developing system level inventions that serve as the foundation for 3G, 4G and 5G wireless technologies. This includes technologies, such as CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) families of technologies, with the latter encompassing LTE (Long Term Evolution) and 5G NR (New Radio), which are the primary digital technologies used to transmit voice or data over radio waves using a public or private cellular wireless network. The company owns significant intellectual property, including patents, patent applications, and trade secrets, applicable to products that implement any version of CDMA and/or OFDMA technologies. The mobile industry generally recognizes that any company seeking to develop, manufacture and/or sell devices or infrastructure equipment that use CDMA-based and/or OFDMA-based technologies requires a license or other rights to use the company's patents. The company also develops and commercializes numerous other key technologies used in mobile and other wireless devices, and it owns substantial intellectual property related to these technologies. Some of these inventions are contributed to and commercialized as industry standards, such as for certain video and audio codecs, Wi-Fi, GPS (Global Positioning System), UWB (ultra-wideband) and Bluetooth. The company has also developed other technologies that are used by wireless devices that are not related to industry standards, such as operating systems, user interfaces, graphics and camera processing functionality, RF (radio frequency), RFFE (radio frequency front-end) and antenna designs, AI and machine learning techniques and application processor architectures. The company's patents cover a wide range of technologies across the entire wireless system (including wireless devices and network infrastructure equipment), not just the portion of such patented technologies incorporated into chipsets. The company conducts business primarily through its QCT (Qualcomm CDMA Technologies) semiconductor business and its QTL (Qualcomm Technology Licensing) licensing business. Segments The company operates through three segments: QCT, QTL, and QSI. QCT segment QCT is a leading developer and supplier of integrated circuits and system software based on 3G/4G/5G and other technologies for use in wireless voice and data communications, networking, computing, multimedia and GPS products. QCT's integrated circuit products are sold and its system software is licensed to manufacturers that use the company's products in a broad range of devices, from low-tier, entry-level devices primarily for emerging regions to premium-tier devices, including but not limited to mobile devices, wireless networks, devices used in IoT, broadband gateway equipment, consumer electronic devices, and automotive systems for connectivity, digital cockpit and advanced driver assistance and automated driving. The company's one technology roadmap delivers the latest network technologies across multiple product tiers and devices. This roadmap is the result of extensive collaboration with manufacturers, operators, developers, systems integrators, cloud providers, tool vendors, service providers, governments, and industry standards organizations, as well as its years of research into emerging network standards and the development of integrated circuits. The company's roadmap takes advantage of new standards, while maintaining backward compatibility with existing standards. The company has leveraged and expects to continue to leverage the foundational technologies initially developed and commercialized for use in mobile handset devices, such as its core baseband modem and processor technologies and its other wireless connectivity products, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and precise positioning technologies, to extend into product categories, industries and applications beyond mobile handsets, such as automotive and IoT (which includes the industries and applications of consumer, industrial and edge networking). QCT develops and supplies integrated circuits and system software based on 3G/4G/5G and other technologies, including RFFE, for use in mobile devices; automotive systems for connectivity, digital cockpit and ADAS/AD; and IoT, including consumer electronic devices; industrial devices; and edge networking products. The Snapdragon family of highly integrated, system-based solutions include the Snapdragon mobile, compute, sound, and automotive platforms. Each platform consists of application processors and wireless connectivity capabilities, including the company's cellular modem that provides core baseband modem functionality for voice and data communications, non-cellular wireless connectivity (such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) and global positioning functions. The company's Snapdragon application processor functions include AI / NPU (Neural Processing Unit), central processing unit (CPU), security, graphics, display, audio, video, camera. The company's CPUs are designed to deliver high levels of compute performance with optimized power consumption. The company's Qualcomm Hexagon NPUs are designed to support a variety of AI processing tasks for superior performance-per-watt. The company's Qualcomm Adreno graphics processing units are designed to deliver high quality graphics performance for visually rich 3D gaming and user interfaces. In addition to the highly integrated core SoC, the company designs and supplies supporting components, including the RF transceiver, PM (power management), audio, codecs, speaker amps and additional wireless connectivity integrated circuits. These supporting components, in addition to the company's cellular modems and application processors comprising its core SoC, are also sold as individual components. The combination of the Snapdragon System-on-Chip (SoC), system software and supporting components provide an overall platform with optimized performance and efficiency, enabling manufacturers to design and deliver powerful, slim and power-efficient devices ready for integration with the complex cellular networks worldwide. The company's portfolio of RF products includes Qualcomm RFFE components that are designed to simplify the RF front-end design for 5G, including sub-6 GHz and mmWave, as well as, for 4G LTE multimode and mobile devices, to reduce power consumption and to improve radio performance. The company provides comprehensive RFFE product offerings with system level performance from the modem and transceiver to the antenna that include complex 4G/5G transmit and receive modules, power tracking, tuning systems, multimode-multiband power amplification, low noise amplifiers, and (millimeter wave) mmWave antenna solutions, in addition to discrete filtering products, for devices and applications across the mobile handsets, automotive and IoT industries. The company has also integrated its Snapdragon platform with its RFFE components to create its Snapdragon 5G modem-RF products, the world's first commercial modem-to-antenna 5G solution designed to maximize data speeds and performance, support superior call connectivity, and coverage and extend battery life. The company's wireless connectivity products also consist of integrated circuits and system software for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and frequency modulation, as well as technologies that support location data and services. The company's wireless connectivity products provide additional connectivity for mobile devices, tablets, laptops, XR headsets, voice and music devices, wearable devices, along with other IoT devices and applications, automotive connectivity, digital cockpit and ADAS/AD, utility meters and logistic trackers and industrial sensors. QCT also offers standalone Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, fingerprint sensor, applications processor and Ethernet products utilized within these devices and systems. The company's networking products include Wi-Fi, Ethernet and Powerline chips, network processors, wireless access points and routers, broadband gateway equipment and software. These products help enable home and business networks to support the growing number of connected devices, digital media, and data services. Other than for certain of the company's RFFE modules and RF filter products. Therefore, the company primarily relies on third parties to perform the manufacturing and assembly, and most of the testing, of its integrated circuits based primarily on its proprietary designs and test programs. The company employs both turnkey and two-stage manufacturing models to purchase its integrated circuits. Under the turnkey model, the company's foundry suppliers are responsible for delivering fully assembled and tested integrated circuits. Under the two-stage manufacturing model, the company purchases die in singular or wafer form from semiconductor manufacturing foundries and contract with separate third parties for manufacturing services, such as wafer bump, probe, assembly and the majority of its final test requirements. The primary foundry suppliers for the company's various digital, analog/mixed-signal, RF and PM integrated circuits are Global Foundries, Samsung Electronics, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The company's primary semiconductor assembly and test suppliers are Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Amkor Technology, Siliconware Precision Industries, and STATSChipPAC. The majority of the company's foundry and semiconductor assembly and test suppliers are located in the Asia-Pacific region. QCT primarily uses internal fabrication facilities to manufacture certain RFFE modules and RF filter products, and the company's manufacturing operations consist of front-end and back-end processes. The front-end processes primarily take place at manufacturing facilities located in Germany and Singapore and involve the imprinting of substrate wafers with the structure and circuitry required for the products to function (also known as wafer fabrication). The back-end processes include the assembly, packaging and test of RFFE modules and RF filter products and their preparation for distribution. The company's back-end manufacturing facilities are located in China and Singapore. Competition QCT's competitors include but are not limited to, companies, such as Apple, Broadcom, HiSilicon, MediaTek, Nvidia Corporation, NXP Semiconductors, Qorvo, Samsung, Skyworks, Texas Instruments and UNISOC. QTL segment QTL grants licenses or otherwise provides rights to use portions of the company's intellectual property portfolio, which, among other rights, includes certain patent rights essential to and/or useful in the manufacture, sale and/or use of certain wireless products, including without limitation, products implementing WCDMA (Wideband CDMA), LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and/or OFDMA-based 5G standards and their derivatives. The company grants licenses or otherwise provide rights to use its cellular standard-essential patents (including 3G, 4G and 5G) for both single-mode and multimode devices on a worldwide basis. The company also offers licenses to its cellular standard-essential patents together with other Qualcomm patents that may be useful to such licensed products for licensees that desire to obtain the commercial benefits of receiving such broad patent rights from it. The company's licensees manufacture wireless cellular products, such as mobile devices (including handsets), other consumer devices (e.g., tablets and laptops), plug-in end user data modem cards and embedded modules for incorporation into machine-to-machine devices and certain other devices, connected vehicle units and connected vehicle modules used in automobiles, wireless access points, small cell wireless products. The company focuses heavily on technology development and innovation. The company has an extensive portfolio of United States and foreign patents, and it continues to pursue patent applications around the world. The company's patents have broad coverage in many countries, including Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States, and countries in Europe. A substantial portion of the company's patents and patent applications relate to digital wireless communications technologies, including patents that are essential or may be important to the commercial implementation of CDMA2000, WCDMA (UMTS), LTE and/or OFDMA-based 5G products. The company's patent portfolio is the most widely and extensively licensed in the industry, including more than 200 5G license agreements to date. Additionally, the company has a substantial patent portfolio related to key technologies used in communications and other devices and/or related services, some of which were developed in industry standards development organizations. These include certain video codecs, audio codecs, Wi-Fi, memory interfaces, wireless power, position location, broadcast and streaming protocols, and short-range communication functionalities, including NFC (Near Field Communication) and Bluetooth. The company's patents cover a wide range of technologies across the entire wireless system (including wireless devices and network infrastructure equipment). The company has licensed or otherwise provided rights to use its patents to hundreds of companies on industry-accepted terms. The company's strategy to make its patented technologies broadly available has been a catalyst for industry growth, helping to enable a wide range of companies offering a broad array of wireless products and features while increasing the capabilities of and/or driving down average and low-end selling prices for handsets and other wireless devices. By licensing or otherwise providing rights to use the company's patents to a wide range of equipment manufacturers, encouraging innovative applications, supporting equipment manufacturers with integrated chipset and software products and focusing on improving the efficiency of the airlink for wireless operators, it has helped multimode device capabilities evolve, grow demand and reduce device pricing. By licensing or otherwise providing rights to use the company's patents to a wide range of equipment manufacturers, it is supporting the global rollout and availability of 5G technology. The licenses granted under the company's existing license agreements generally cover multimode CDMA/OFDMA (3G/4G/5G) devices, and its licensees are obligated to pay royalties under their license agreements for their sales of such devices. Standards bodies have been informed that the company holds patents that might be essential for all 3G standards that are based on CDMA, patents and pending patent applications that are potentially essential for LTE standards, including FDD and TDD versions, and patents and pending patent applications that are potentially essential for 5G technologies. The company has made similar commitments with respect to certain other technologies implemented in industry standards. QTL licensing revenues include per-unit royalties and, to a lesser extent, lump sum payments (license fees). Licensees pay quarterly royalties based on their sales of products incorporating or using the company's licensed intellectual property. The vast majority of QTL revenues have been generated through the company's licensees' sales of OFDMA-based products (including 3G, 3G/4G and 3G/4G/5G multimode devices), such as smartphones and other devices. The company has invested in both the acquisition and development of, and continue to invest in the development of, OFDMA technology and intellectual property and have generated the industry leading patent portfolio applicable to LTE, LTE Advanced, LTE Advanced Pro and 5G NR. Some of the company's inventions that serve as foundational technologies for 3G and 4G also serve as foundational technologies for 5G. The company has invested and continue to invest in the development of 5G and continue to play a significant role in driving advancements of 5G. The company's license agreements also provides it with rights to use certain of its licensees' technology and intellectual property to manufacture, sell and/or use certain components (e.g., application-specific integrated circuits) and related software, cellular devices and/or infrastructure equipment. QSI segment Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives (QSI) makes strategic investments primarily through the company's Qualcomm Ventures arm that are focused on expanding or opening new opportunities for its technologies, as well as supporting the design and introduction of new products and services (or enhancing existing products or services). Many of these strategic investments are in early-stage companies in a variety of industries and applications, including but not limited to, 5G, AI, automotive, consumer, enterprise, cloud, IoT and XR. Investments primarily include non-marketable equity securities and to a lesser extent, marketable equity securities and convertible debt instruments. Other Businesses Nonreportable segments include the company's (Qualcomm Government Technologies) QGOV business, its cloud AI inference processing initiative and other technology and service initiatives. QGOV provides development and other services and sells related products to the U.S. government agencies and their contractors. Revenue Concentrations and Significant Customers A small number of customers/licensees historically have accounted for a significant portion of the company's consolidated revenues. In fiscal 2023, revenues from (Apple Inc.) Apple and (Samsung Electronics) Samsung each consisted of 10% or more of its consolidated revenues. Seasonality Many of the company's products and much of its intellectual property are incorporated into consumer wireless devices, which are subject to seasonality and other fluctuations in demand. The company's revenues have historically fluctuated based on consumer demand for devices, as well as on the timing of customer/licensee device launches and/or innovation cycles (such as the transition to the next generation of wireless technologies). This has resulted in fluctuations in QCT revenues in advance of and during device launches incorporating the company's products and in QTL revenues when licensees' sales occur. Research and Development The company's research and development expenditures were $8.8 billion for the year ended September 24, 2023. History QUALCOMM Incorporated was founded in 1985. The company was incorporated in California in 1985 and reincorporated in Delaware in 1991.