Qualcomm FY Q3 earnings underscore excitement over new Snapdragon AI chips

What you need to know

• Qualcomm's latest earnings report shows an 11% increase in revenue at $9.39 billion.
• Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon highlights new AI PCs powered by the latest Snapdragon chips.
• Qualcomm's earnings follow Samsung's, which reported year-over-year growth with sales of the Galaxy S24 series, which is partially powered by Qualcomm chips.
• Qualcomm is expected to announce its new Oryon-powered Snapdragon chips later this year.

Qualcomm reported its fiscal year Q3 financial earnings , announcing $9.39 billion in revenue, an 11% increase in overall revenue compared to the same period last year.

Qualcomm's growth was the result of a massive 87% gain in the company's relatively small automotive business but mostly the 12% increase in headset revenue of over $5.89 billion, highlighted by the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 , which launched on devices like the Galaxy S24 series and other flagship Android phones . Qualcomm CEO also highlights the excitement around new Copilot Plus PCs powered by Snapdragon chips, which went on sale starting in June.

"We are excited about the launch of our Snapdragon X Series solutions for PCs that deliver leading performance, unmatched power efficiency and personalized AI experiences," Amon said in a prepared statement.

"This launch represents a significant milestone in our transformation from a communications company to a leading intelligent computing company."

Qualcomm is also gearing up for the Snapdragon Summit later this year, where it will launch its next-generation chipset for smartphones , which will be powered by the same Oryon cores used in its Snapdragon X Elite chips for PCs.

The current batch of premium smartphone chips is already well-versed in use cases like on-device AI , which users can take advantage of with devices like the Galaxy S24 series and the latest Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Z Fold 6 . Samsung, which just announced its quarterly earnings , noted how smartphone growth overall was down, but sales of its Galaxy S24 series had increased by double digits compared to sales of the Galaxy S23 series.

Additionally, Amon says the performance of its Oryon CPUs has already "exceeded" the expectations of the company and its partners, comparing it to the boost seen in the new patch of Copilot Plus PCs .

"You're going to see us doing that within our mobile roadmap, but on the premium tier," Amon said during the earnings call. "I'm actually very excited given the upcoming launch of our next Snapdragon that has our custom CPU, and you're going to see the same shift in performance that we have done in the PC ecosystem, restoring the performance back to the Windows ecosystem.

You're going to see doing something similar in phone, and AI is going to be a big part of this story."

During the earnings call, Amon also noted that Qualcomm is excited about the trajectory of where AI is going and its relationship with partners. He referenced a long-term agreement with Honor, which recently launched the Honor 200 Pro , and an agreement with Samsung "largely consistent to what you have seen with the launch of the GS24," meaning we can likely expect new Exynos chips to steal some of Qualcomm's share.

Amon also highlighted sales of the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses , which have exceeded Qualcomm's expectations, and underscore the momentum of AI models like Llama and XR devices and applications.

The Snapdragon Summit will kick off on October 24. At this event, we will learn more about the next Snapdragon chip and likely the first phones to adopt it.