Episode summary
Qualcomm CEO Shares the Company's Disruption Strategy | At Barron's
At Barron's
· · Hosts: Andy Serwer · Guests: Cristiano Amon
Summary
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon says the company is no longer just a mobile licensing story: the licensing business remains important, but the chip business is now the main growth engine. He argues Qualcomm’s core assets — wireless, high-performance low-power computing, and AI processors — can be applied across multiple industries, from smartphones and iPhones to automotive, wearables, smart glasses, PCs, industrial customers and eventually data centers.
Amon says the strategy since he became CEO in June 2021 has been to sequence expansion carefully, starting with automotive, then PCs, then industrial, and now data center. He says that approach is working, citing record quarterly revenue and growth in automotive above 50% and IoT above 30%, while insisting the stock still trades like a mobile-only company. In his view, investors have not yet fully recognized Qualcomm as a diversified platform for edge AI.
He says Qualcomm has no direct tariff exposure, manufactures chips across a diversified supply chain, and has not yet seen an indirect demand hit from consumer confidence. He also emphasizes U.S. and global R&D, talent attraction, China as a stable and important market, and Qualcomm’s growing role in data center alongside Nvidia’s AI ecosystem.
Key takeaways
- Amon says Qualcomm’s chip business, not licensing, is the company’s growth engine now.
- He believes investors are still valuing Qualcomm like a mobile-only company, creating a discount to the stock.
- Amon says automotive is already a leading platform for Qualcomm and grew more than 50% in the latest period.
- He says Qualcomm has no direct tariff exposure because its supply chain is diversified and 20% of chips are made in the U.S.
- Amon argues Qualcomm’s IP stack positions it to benefit as AI moves to phones, cars, PCs, wearables, industrial gear and data centers.
Notable quotes
“most of the growth of the company and the large scale business of the company is not the licensing, it's the chip business”
“what we have could be disruptive to many industries and we could generate growth by entering new industries beyond mobile”
“I think we're trading at mobile multiples and I think that means uh we're trading at a discount”
“right now, we have no direct tariff exposure”
“As long as innovation matters, there's going to be room for Qualcomm”
How the episode opens
Hello everyone and welcome to At Barons. I'm Andy Sirwart and welcome to our guest Cristiano Ammon, CEO of Qualcomm. Cristiano, nice to see you. — Nice to see you too. — I want to ask you about the business model of Qualcomm because it's a little complicated maybe. Tell us about how the model works.
Simple. It's actually not complicated. I knew you were going to say that.
There Qualcomm has a licensing business model and I think that's the old business of Qualcomm. It's a great business. U it will will continue to be a great business but that's relatively simple.
I think it's h when Qualcomm came up with the technologies uh that were the foundation for 3G, 4G, 5G, soon 6G. uh we decided to openly license so everybody can build it versus we be the one building the technology and then people pay uh royalty uh which is licensed on fair reasonable non-discriminatory way to the wholesale price of the phone. Now that was the main business of Qualcomm several years ago but uh now it's the legacy business of Qualcomm.
It's great business, but most of the growth of the company and the large scale business of the company is not the licensing, it's the chip business and and that's like we make great chips and those chips go into great devices and uh that has been the largest business of Qualcomm and the chip business will continue to be the growth engine of Qualcomm.
And who are some of your customers, Cristiano, both on the licensing side and on the direct chip manufacturing side? You know, I love answering this question. I love it because part of the transformation of Qualcomm, our customers are changing every every year we get a whole new suite of customers that we go to different industries.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- qualcomm strategy
- semiconductor disruption
- ai and wireless technology
- industry expansion
- ceo outlook
Companies and tickers mentioned
- QCOM
- Qualcomm
Watch the episode
Watch “Qualcomm CEO Shares the Company's Disruption Strategy | At Barron's” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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