Qualcomm Earnings: Here is What You Need to Know

Qualcomm Earnings ReportSan Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) posted its quarterly earning report after Wednesday’s trading day, and the numbers were received negatively at first, but have since recovered entering Thursday’s trading. The company’s fiscal Q3 report revealed earning-per-share of 85 cents, which was 1 cent off estimates, and revenue of $4.63 billion missing estimates by $50 million (1 percent). Upon the report of those numbers, QCOM stock fell nearly 2 percent, but as Thursday’s trading began, QCOM was back up nearly 3 percent to $56 per share.

Revenues were up 28 percent over the same quarter in 2011, but were down 6 percent from FQ2 in 2012, according to the report. Operating income was up 24 percent from FQ3 in 2011 (to $1.38 billion), but operating cash flow of $922 million was down 27 percent year-over-year. The company returned $802 million to shareholders, with $429 million in dividends (25 cents per share) and a $373 million in a stock repurchase (6.6 million shares).

In announcing the earnings, CEO Dr. Paul E. Jacobs said, “Adoption of 3G and 3G/4G technologies continues around the world, driving strong year-over-year growth in our chipset and licensing businesses this quarter. Looking forward, our growth estimates for 3G/4G device shipments in calendar 2012 have moderated slightly, and we now expect the demand profile of the calendar year to be more back-end loaded as new devices are launched for the holiday season.  Although our outlook for semiconductor volumes in the fiscal fourth quarter has been reduced from our prior expectations, we are ramping supply of our 28 nanometer chipsets to help enable what we expect to be a strong December quarter for our semiconductor business.”

In addition to earnings, Qualcomm game modified earnings guidance for FQ4, which ends in late September – revenues of $4.45-$4.85 billion (down from a consensus of $4.9 billion) and an EPS of 78-84 cents per share, down from an estimate of 89 cents.

At the end of March (just as QCOM’s FQ2 was ending), there were at least a couple of hedge funds that were feeling bullish about the tech giant – Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital and Rob Citrone’s Discovery Capital Management had both increased their share holds during Q1 of 2012 by significant numbers. Lone Pine had increased its stable of QCOM shares by 21 percent in the quarter to a value of $523 million, while Discovery added 42 percent to its stock haul to own $344 million worth on March 31.