Qualcomm Sees ‘Much More Favorable’ Chips Supply Ahead and 5G Strength
Qualcomm expects “material improvements” in semiconductor industry supply by calendar year-end, and “a much more favorable supply environment” in 2022, “due to planned capacity builds and multi-sourcing initiatives,” said President Cristiano Amon on a fiscal Q2 call Wednesday. “As one…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
of the leading drivers of advanced semiconductor technology platforms, we’re also excited to see more foundry investment in the United States,” consistent with the “strategic priorities” of Joe Biden's presidency, he said. Some of those priorities were mentioned by Biden to Congress Wednesday; see our report here. The company continues experiencing “unprecedented demand across all of our technologies and businesses,” as the pandemic environment “is accelerating the scale of connectivity and processing at the edge,” said Amon. The “supply constraint” in semiconductors “is really across all product lines,” not “unique to one thing or the other,” like smartphones, said Amon. “It’s a good position to be in that we actually have more demand than supply across all of our business,” because it “gives us confidence” about Qualcomm’s “growth position,” he said. Amon succeeds retiring CEO Steve Mollenkopf June 30. Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala said Qualcomm stands by its February forecast that the industry will ship 450 million to 550 million 5G handsets globally in calendar 2021. Qualcomm estimates the industry shipped 225 million 5G smartphones worldwide in 2020. “Years of repressed refresh cycles with a boost from 5G” helped propel a 25.5% global increase in first-quarter smartphone shipments to 346 million handsets of all generations, reported IDC.