Q4 2024 Qualcomm Inc Earnings Call

In This Article:

Participants

Mauricio Lopez-Hodoyan; Vice President, Investor Relations; Qualcomm Inc

Cristiano Renno Amon; President and Chief Executive Officer; Qualcomm Inc

Akash Palkhiwala; Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer; Qualcomm Inc

Joe Moore; Analyst; Morgan Stanley

Samik Chatterjee; Analyst; JPMorgan

Stacy Rasgon; Analyst; Bernstein

Joshua Buchalter; Analyst; TD Cowen

Chris Caso; Analyst; Wolfe Research

Tal Liani; Analyst; BofA Global Research

Timothy Arcuri; Analyst; UBS Equities

C.J. Muse; Analyst; Cantor Fitzgerald

Presentation

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Qualcomm fourth quarter and fiscal 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, November 6, 2024.
The playback number for today's call is 877-660-6853. International callers, please dial 201-612-7415. The playback reservation number is 13749366.
I would now like on the call over to Mauricio Lopez-Hodoyan, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Lopez-Hodoyan, please go ahead.

Mauricio Lopez-Hodoyan

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Today's call will include prepared remarks by Cristiano Renno Amon and Akash Palkhiwala. In addition, Alex Rogers will join the question-and-answer session.
You can access our earnings release and slide presentation that accompany this call on our Investor Relations website. In addition, this call is being webcast on qualcomm.com, and a replay will be available on our website later today.
During the call today, we will use non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G, and you can find the related reconciliations to GAAP on our website. We will also make forward-looking statements, including projections and estimates of future events, business or industry trends, or business or financial results.
Actual events or results could differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our most recent 10-K, which contain important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements.
And now, the comments from Qualcomm's President and Chief Executive Officer, Cristiano Renno Amon.

Cristiano Renno Amon

Thank you, Mauricio, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today.
In fiscal Q4, we delivered non-GAAP revenues of $10.2 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.69. Chipset business revenues were $8.7 billion, and licensing business revenues were $1.5 billion.
During Q4 in fiscal '24, we continue to make progress on our growth and diversification strategy, addressing new end markets for Qualcomm's technology. Our differentiated technology and product roadmaps lead in every industry in which we now participate, and we are very optimistic about the edge AI momentum across our business. As such, we will continue to transform Qualcomm from a wireless communications company into a connected computing company for the age of AI.
In the current environment, more than ever, we remain extremely focused on executing our strategy and targets while maintaining operating discipline and creating value for our stockholders. I will now share some key highlights from across the business.
As the strong pace of AI innovation continues, there is now broad recognition of the opportunity for on-device AI to enable new capabilities and transform the human computer interface. On-device AI provides context, enhances immediacy and reliability, and enables personalization while providing privacy and security.
Additionally, GenAI-enabled devices and applications are evolving to understand natural language, images, sound, and the world around us, driving a new generation of AI-first experiences. This has the potential to create a new cycle of semiconductor innovation and content, and Qualcomm is well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity across devices at the edge.
We shared this vision at the recent Snapdragon Summit with the support of key industry leaders, including Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, Mister AI, IBM, and others. Together with our ecosystem partners, we're driving this transition to AI-enable edge computing to empower consumers and enterprises by enhancing productivity, entertainment, creativity, convenience, and more.
Notably, we're partnering with Meta to support Llama 3.2, including their multimodal 11 billion, 3 billion, and 1 billion-parameter models on Snapdragon-powered devices. We're also working with Amazon to create a cloud-to-edge solution that allows developers to customize their models on SageMaker and deploy them to Qualcomm and Snapdragon platforms via the AI Hub.
Model availability on the AI Hub has grown by more than 50% since last quarter, with both open source and proprietary models. In handsets, we recently unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite, our latest flagship mobile platform, which features our second-generation custom Oryon CPU. This CPU delivers up to 30% faster performance with 57% less power, a significant leap over the first generation in less than a year.
Snapdragon 8 Elite is the world's fastest mobile processor, restoring performance leadership to the Android ecosystem. In addition, Snapdragon 8 Elite introduces a newly architected Hexagon NPU, delivering a 45% improvement in both performance and power efficiency over Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
Combined with the improved CPU and GPU, Snapdragon 8 Elite can dynamically manage AI workloads and handle the complexities of multimodal GenAI in real time. We are extremely pleased with the Snapdragon 8 Elite design traction with successful launches at Xiaomi, Honor, Oppo, and Vivo; and we look forward to additional launches at Samsung, ASUS, and more.
In a short period of time, our Snapdragon X Series platforms have redefined personal computing. Building on the initial launch momentum, we have expanded our portfolio with the addition of the Snapdragon X Plus 8-core compute platform.
The X Plus 8-core maintains leadership in performance and battery life, enabling OEMs to offer thin and light Copilot+ PCs with transformative, uncompromised on-device AI in more affordable price points. This makes next-gen AI PCs accessible to even more users, expanding our addressable market.
We are very pleased that leading OEMs, including Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Acer, and ASUS will all have devices powered by our X Plus 8-core platform. We now have a total of 58 platforms launched or in development across the X Series portfolio.
Snapdragon X Series power laptops will also be the first to get the new Copilot+ PC features announced on October 1, including Recall, Click To Do, improved search, super resolution in photos, generative fill, and erase in Paint.
In XR, together with Meta, we continue to enable the future of spatial computing. The recently announced Quest 3S powered by Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 delivers a more affordable headset targeted for users new to mix reality and immersive experiences. This is an important milestone in increasing the scale of this opportunity.
Additionally, the Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 powered Ray-Ban Meta glasses are receiving new AI features, including location and navigation assistance, real-time speech translation, answering questions about their environment, and hands-free access to user digital lives. We're also pleased that Snap recently unveiled their next-generation Spectacles powered by dual Snapdragon processors, which are aimed at creators exploring advanced AR experiences.
Industrial IoT is evolving with advanced edge computing and intelligence, driving demand for our technologies and providing a significant future opportunity for Qualcomm. To that end, we recently announced the Qualcomm IQ Series, a new family of industrial-grade solutions specifically designed to meet the needs of next-generation, industrial edge applications.
With on-device AI performance of up to 100 tops, the ability to operate in extreme conditions, and a suite of building safety features, the Qualcomm IQ Series of chipsets are purpose-built to power a wide range of solutions, including inspection and automation, robotics, drones, advanced computer vision, edge AI boxes and gateways, and more.
Additionally, we introduced the Qualcomm IoT Solutions Framework, which helps enterprises build solutions that enable easy development of end-to-end applications, reduce time to implementation, and improve operational efficiencies. This all-encompassing framework features recommended chipsets and core software; support for multiple operating systems, such as Android, Linux, and Windows; tailored reference designs; software libraries; SDKs; supplementary cloud-based services; microservices; and access to a growing network of channel partners.
In edge networking, we announced the Networking Pro A7 Elite platform, the first commercial platform to revolutionize enterprise and home networking connectivity with edge AI. This platform includes Wi-Fi 7, 5G, 10-gigabit PON, Ethernet, and an AI co-processor with 40 tops of NPU processing power.
The transformative integration of connectivity and computing power into the network unlocks opportunities for operators and enterprises to deploy innovative applications and services in areas such as security and surveillance, energy management and automation, personalized virtual assistance, and health monitoring, among others. Edge AI also enhances privacy by processing sensitive information on the gateway while enabling personalization through contextualized understanding of the environment and immediacy to near real-time responses.
Finally, in automotive, we recently announced our most powerful platforms to date, the Snapdragon Cockpit Elite and Snapdragon Ride Elite. Both feature our category-leading custom Oryon CPU, now optimized for automotive safety standards and design for three times faster CPU performance over previous generations.
These platforms are also developed for current and future multimodal AI in assisted driving workloads, feature our dedicated Hexagon NPU with up to 12 times increased AI performance over previous generation, a substantial upgrade.
The Snapdragon Cockpit Elite powers advanced digital experiences, including robust multimedia capabilities, such as gaming and advanced 3D graphics, on-device AI with fully integrated edge orchestrator, optimized safety and security, and long-term software support. The Snapdragon Ride Elite platform offers an end-to-end ADAS system with advanced features, such as vision perception, sensor fusion, path planning, localization, and complete vehicle control.
Additionally, these platforms are built on a unique, flexible architecture that gives automakers the option to combine both digital cockpit and automated driving functionalities on the same SoC. We are pleased that leading core manufacturers are adopting Snapdragon Elite automotive platforms for their future software-defined vehicles, including Li Auto and Mercedes-Benz.
We are very pleased with the progress we have made this year with significant advancements on our product roadmap and customer engagement across multiple end markets. I look forward to sharing more about our strategy and progress at our upcoming growth and diversification focused Investor Day in New York on November 19.
I will now turn the call to Akash.