The company was hoping to sell 185 – 205 million MSM chips and ended up at the 205 million number, again a great achievement followed by a 15 percent QCT EBT margin. QTL revenues were expected between $0.85 billion - $1.05 billion and due to a mysterious payment by a licensee, it ended up at $1.47 billion.
QTL EBT margin per guidance was supposed to settle at 50 to 54 percent and it was announced at rather high 72 percent.
It looks like China was after a lot of Snapdragon 700 and 800 chipsets for its new generation of devices and the 845 ended up in 130 designs. It is estimated that in calendar 2018 global 3G/4G device shipments amounted to approximately 1.8 billion to 1.9 billion units. That is a lot of phones.
Qualcomm points out that it has solved the 5G antenna issue - something that we covered in a separate part. There are now 18 network operators and 20 manufacturers which have selected its X50 5G modem for trials in 5G devices, the company said.
Growth in IoT, Automotive, RFFE, compute and network
IoT, automotive, RFFE, compute and network are the growth opportunities of course, empowered with 5G necessites over the next few years. Qualcomm has an unique set of products including V2X sensors for automotive that have already been selected by many car manufacturers. The company plays in infotainment, camera and sensor market for the automotive markets and there will be very few new cars launching without modems in the next few years.
In financial Q4 2018 Qualcomm expects $5.1 billion - $5.9 billion revenue, Non-GAAP combined R&D and SG&A expenses to stay flat sequentially, Non-GAAP diluted Earnings per share at $0.75 - $0.85 and 205M – 225M MSM chips. QCT EBT margin is expected at 16-18 percent.
QTL expected revenue is between $1.0 billion - $1.2 billion with a 58-62 percent margin. It will be interesting to see if Qualcomm can manage to outperform 2017 when it comes to MSM shipments. Global 3G/4G shipments are expected to grow up to five percent from 1.755 billion to 1.8- 1.9 billion units in 2018 and of course this will increase the potential chip sales.
Chinese OEMs expanding beyond China and all being committed to Qualcomm 5G - except Huawei who has its own 5G gig - will be a big boost in 2019 and especially beyond.
