Qualcomm blows away expectations by shipping 211 million chips in Q4

Qualcomm saw a healthy 13.3% YoY increase in revenue to $6.2 billion on the back of strong demand in China and new license agreements in the country. Overall chip shipments rose by 4% to 211 million units.

From Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf:

Our fiscal fourth quarter EPS was above the high end of our expectations, reflecting new license agreements in China and strong chipset shipments. We are forecasting continued growth of global 3G/4G device shipments in calendar year 2017, led by growing demand in emerging regions.We are well positioned to extend our mobile technology leadership and footprint into attractive growth opportunities, accelerated by our recently announced agreement to acquire NXP.

With 4G finally gaining ground in countries like India, we'll likely see a host of companies rolling out phones powered by the Snapdragon 427 next year, which offers an X9 LTE modem, dual ISPs, and Qualcomm's TruSignal antenna boost tech.

The company isn't just relying on the mobile SoC segment to drive growth. Last week, Qualcomm announced that it would acquire NXP Semiconductors for $47 billion, giving it a vital foothold in the automotive and IoT segments.

Harish Jonnalagadda
Senior Editor - Asia

Harish Jonnalagadda is a Senior Editor overseeing Asia at Android Central. He leads the site's coverage of Chinese phone brands, contributing to reviews, features, and buying guides. He also writes about storage servers, audio products, and the semiconductor industry. Contact him on Twitter at @chunkynerd.