QCOM
Qualcomm
Semiconductors
★ Quality 82/100Price today
$168.74
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See what it is worthcharlieapp.co
A monopoly in mobile chips
Qualcomm dominates modems and processors for premium smartphones. Its patents are so essential that virtually every phone in the world pays it royalties.
What this business is made of
Where does the value come from?
5-year cycle
Money made year by year
This business has cycles — good years and bad years. That's why we don't use just the last year.
We use the average of those 5 years as the base for the math — not the good year, not the bad year. That way the value reflects what the company makes steadily.
The business
Qualcomm collects a toll on nearly every smartphone on the planet, whether it uses their chip or not.
Qualcomm designs the Snapdragon chips that power millions of Android phones and, on top of that, licenses the essential patents for 3G, 4G, and 5G networks. It gets paid twice: for selling the chip and for a royalty on nearly every phone made in the world, even those carrying someone else's chip. Revenue of $44.3B, with automotive and IoT (connected devices) adding more every year.
The moat lives in the essential patents of the cellular standard: to build a phone with a connection, you pay Qualcomm. That sustains a 55% gross margin that can't be replicated with capital. Snapdragon dominates the Android high end, and switching modem suppliers takes years.
Revenue history
From $33.6B to $44.3B in 4 years. The business grows steadily.
Where each $100 of sales goes
Revenue $44.3B · FY2025
Of every $100 in sales, $87 goes to costs and operations; $13 is left as net profit (13% margin).
Catalysts and risks
Automotive: order backlog surpassing $45B, diversifying away from mobile.
On-device AI (edge): Snapdragon as a platform for phones and PCs with local AI.
Dividend ~2% and sustained buybacks with FCF of $12.8B.
Apple integrates its own modem and pulls its biggest customer away from Qualcomm.
Semiconductor cycle: mobile demand swings up and down sharply.
Concentration in China (~46% of sales): geopolitical and regulatory tension.
Charlie's note
“The patent moat is real and the 55% margin doesn't lie. But paying 22x mid-cycle flow for a business that's losing its biggest customer already assumes automotive fills the gap — too much applause for my taste.”
Analysis · July 2026
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