Key Stats for Qualcomm Stock
- Current Price: $164.79
- Target Price (Mid): ~$378
- Street Target: ~$196
- Potential Total Return: ~130%
- Annualized IRR: ~24% / year
What Happened?
Qualcomm (QCOM) closed at $164.79 on October 30, down 11.12%, as Intel (INTC) sank 28.58% on a fourth-quarter outlook that blamed memory shortages for a shrinking PC market. Amazon (AMZN), Qualcomm’s new data center customer, also fell after its results revived AI spending concerns.
No Qualcomm-specific catalyst was confirmed, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.86%, its worst day since June. The selloff lands five days before Qualcomm’s November 4 report, which tests a call its CFO made in September: that phones have bottomed.
Intel’s Warning Challenges Qualcomm’s Call That Phones Have Bottomed
At Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference on September 8, CFO and COO Akash Palkhiwala said of smartphones, “we’re at the low point in the cycle. Things can only go up from here.” He pointed to “the impact that we are seeing from memory in the short term kind of resolving through.”
Intel’s outlook says the squeeze is not resolving. It guided fourth-quarter revenue to $15 billion to $16 billion, below the roughly $17 billion analysts expected, and now sees industry PC units falling about 12% in 2026 and another 10% in 2027 as memory shortages push prices up, as TIKR covered on October 30. Not all of Intel’s miss was demand: a plant accident in Israel takes about $300 million of fourth-quarter revenue.
The overlap with Qualcomm runs two ways. Phones compete for the same scarce memory, and Qualcomm also sells PC processors. Its newest PC win shows the timing problem: the BlueChip defense laptop it unveiled with Anduril on October 27 runs Snapdragon X chips, but orders open only in 2027.
November 4 Checks Qualcomm’s Own Trough Call First
The first test comes from Qualcomm’s July outlook. Management said revenue from Chinese phone makers had likely bottomed in the June quarter and would return to double-digit sequential growth in the September quarter, according to Yahoo Finance’s earnings preview. That is the quarter Qualcomm reports on November 4.
The second test is the December-quarter guide. Analysts expect revenue of around $10.6 billion, about 14% below the $12.25 billion Qualcomm reported a year earlier. A guide near that level would fit a bottom. A lower one would mean memory costs are still cutting phone builds.
TIKR tracks 37 analysts on Qualcomm. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Qualcomm, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Qualcomm’s Analyst Ratings
TIKR Advanced Model Analysis
- Current Price: $164.79
- Target Price (Mid): ~$378
- Potential Total Return: ~130%
- Annualized IRR: ~24% / year
The TIKR model’s mid case uses 2025-to-2035 assumptions of revenue growth near 10% a year, a net margin around 25%, and a P/E rising only about 1% a year, so most of the return comes from earnings. At about 18 times forward earnings, Qualcomm already trades near Nvidia at about 17 times and Broadcom at about 19 times.
Management’s growth case rests on data centers and automotive. Upside comes if handsets stabilize while those businesses scale. Downside comes if fiscal 2027 normalized EPS falls short of the roughly $10.19 analysts expect, which already sits below the roughly $10.48 expected for fiscal 2026.
Conclusion
November 4 tests one claim: that phones have bottomed. Double-digit sequential growth from Chinese phone makers and a December-quarter guide near $10.6 billion would back Palkhiwala’s call. A miss on either would mean the memory squeeze Intel described is still hitting phones, and the October 30 drop was more than a sector move.
So what is Qualcomm stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
