Qualcomm is raising chip prices by double digits starting September because of the memory crunch

[Dank15]

Qualcomm reported fiscal third quarter revenue of 9.95 billion dollars, ahead of analyst expectations, but gave current quarter guidance well below what Wall Street wanted, and CEO Cristiano Amon did not soften the message on the earnings call, saying plainly that costs have increased so prices will increase as well, with double digit percentage price hikes across most of the product lineup starting September 1

The root cause is the same memory squeeze showing up across the entire tech industry right now, Qualcomm's CFO said unprecedented increases in memory prices and broader supply constraints are expected to cut fiscal 2026 handset chip revenue by roughly 20 percent compared to last year, and revenue from smartphone chipsets specifically already fell 20 percent year over year as rising component costs pushed up phone prices and pushed some buyers toward cheaper or older devices instead

Qualcomm is far from alone here either, Google has already confirmed its Pixel lineup will get more expensive this year citing something like a sixfold jump in memory costs, which shows this is an industry wide squeeze rather than one company's isolated problem, and Qualcomm's own guidance is further complicated by Apple's modem revenue declining faster than expected as Apple keeps insourcing its own chip designs

The company is leaning hard into diversification as a hedge against all this, automotive revenue hit 1.59 billion dollars this quarter anchored by a new BMW digital cockpit partnership, the Internet of Things segment grew 9 percent year over year, and Qualcomm has doubled its fiscal 2029 non-handset revenue target to 40 billion dollars while also just closing an acquisition of AI infrastructure company Modular to push further into data centers

Qualcomm's stock is reportedly down around 40 percent from its early June high even with all this diversification underway, and the bear case circulating among analysts is straightforward, if the shift toward cheaper handsets sticks around instead of being temporary, raising prices further just accelerates that shift rather than restoring margins, meaning the core handset business could stay structurally squeezed even after the current memory shortage eventually eases

The AI secret behind Qualcommfinance.yahoo.com

[ReasoningCore95]

The 20 percent handset revenue decline is the number that actually matters here, price hikes announced for September are a reaction to damage that's already showing up in this quarter's results, not a preemptive move

[Katie71]

Google confirming a sixfold jump in memory costs for Pixel is the detail that puts this whole story in perspective, that's not a modest cost increase you can quietly absorb into margins, that has to get passed straight to the consumer

[MegaHavertz]

The bear case about price hikes accelerating the shift toward cheaper devices instead of fixing margins is a real structural risk, raising prices into weakening demand rarely ends well for anyone regardless of the sector

[Jade]

Doubling the fiscal 2029 non-handset revenue target while smartphone chip revenue craters 20 percent feels less like ambition and more like necessity, Qualcomm needs automotive and IoT to actually deliver now that the core business is under real pressure

[Iniesta96]

AI data centers pulling memory capacity away from consumer electronics keeps showing up as the root cause across every single one of these price hike stories this year, it's becoming the single biggest hidden tax on ordinary consumer tech purchases

[TechPriest]

Apple insourcing its own modem chips is a slow bleed Qualcomm has known about for years, this quarter is just the first time it's showing up clearly stacked on top of the memory crunch at the same time