Apple dropping Qualcomm in favor of its own chips is a warning sign for Qualcomm. When Apple dumped Intel's chips, it marked five years of pain for Intel. Around $150 would be the right level to step in. x.comÂ
Dr J Rould
Full-Time Tech Investor, Quantum/Cybersecurity, Philosophy Background
Qualcomm is not simply undervalued: as a pure chip designer it lacks both manufacturing and distribution to end developers, leaving it squeezed by the largest companies on earth. It sends designs to TSMC and has no vertical integration. Amazon, which has pricing power through AWS, is now using Qualcomm to design its next chip, pushing it to undercut Broadcom. Nvidia controls the CUDA developer ecosystem, so its designs will likely far outpace Qualcomm's. It could be wrong short term. x.comÂ
Qualcomm has a terrible position in every market it competes in and is not cheap enough to compensate. It faces Nvidia in cars, Intel and AMD in data-center CPUs, and Samsung and Google on their own phones. China is a material share of revenue, and Apple is aggressively cutting out Qualcomm's modem, a long-term revenue headwind. @citrini, bullish since December, made a good call, but the short stands; it also works as a funding short against long compute names such as AMD, SanDisk and Lumentum. … Show more
Qualcomm has little downside with Amazon having come in as an investor at around $160 a share. Investors give it almost no credit for AI, wearables, robotics and auto, and those businesses can do the heavy lifting to keep the stock steady next year. x.comÂ
Qualcomm is hurt by plunging consumer smartphone sales. Counterpoint Research's preliminary estimate puts global Q3 2026 shipments down 20% year over year, the lowest Q3 since 2012. Apple outperformed Android but was still down. x.com x.comÂ
AMD and Intel look undervalued against Arm, while Qualcomm faces two hellish years. AMD is worth only 2x Arm despite 6x higher, faster-growing net profit, and Intel only 70% more than Arm, though its CPU business alone should be worth twice as much on a normalized basis, with foundry covering the rest. Qualcomm was hit by Apple and then memory prices, is being outcompeted by NVIDIA in automotive, and its AI racks are pure desperation. x.comÂ
Qualcomm's datacenter push would still cover its lost Apple revenue even if it missed its targets by half. At its 2026 IR day, management called datacenter its biggest opportunity ever, targeting $5B of revenue in FY27 with capacity and memory secured and $15B+ by FY29, and raised FY29 non-handset revenue to $40B from $22B. After endless bear cases, from Apple to Samsung and China competition, anything is upside. Hiccups are likely, as no organic datacenter product has customers yet. x.com x.com … Show more
Intel is the poster child of hype-driven bottleneck trades with very little substance, so the risk is being the last one at the party. @munster_gene expects Apple to add at best a couple of billion dollars of revenue to Intel starting in 2028, likely about 2% of the business then. x.comÂ
Intel looks expensive even against sales despite its earlier revenue recovery: at 10x sales versus roughly 5x for chipmakers, the screen puts fair value at $40.45-$51.48 against $104.70. This adds a sales-based valuation warning to the prior earnings concern; it is a levels-only comparison using reported figures, not fundamental diligence. x.comÂ
Qualcomm is still priced as a phone company even as diversification absorbs the loss of Apple modem revenue. Non-handset revenue is now about 34% of QCT; automotive revenue grew 38% to $1.3 billion, with 50% growth guided for Q3 and an exit above $6 billion for FY2026. Snapdragon X2 Elite gives it edge-AI leadership, with over 100 Copilot+ PC designs. Q2 FY2026 beat on revenue of $10.6 billion and EPS of $2.65. The Apple overhang of about $6-8 billion is priced in and nearly over. x.comÂ
Qualcomm stays a Hold, with the target cut to $186 on handset weakness and limited near-to-mid-term data-center visibility. Fiscal Q4 2026 revenue guidance of $9.7-10.5B fell short of buy-side chatter near $11B; Android faces elevated wafer inventories and Apple modem revenue is falling faster than expected. Data-center targets of $5B in FY27 and $15B+ in FY29 were reaffirmed and AI250 has four major US cloud customers, but high LPDDR5 prices hurt its competitiveness, and CPUs are years off. … Show more