Qualcomm (QCOM) Tops Q2 EPS by 7c; Cuts FY15 Outlook

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) reported Q2 EPS of $1.40, $0.07 better than the analyst estimate of $1.33. Revenue for the quarter came in at $6.9 billion versus the consensus estimate of $6.83 billion.

Qualcomm sees FY2015 EPS of $4.60-$5.00, versus the consensus of $5.00. Qualcomm sees FY2015 revenue of $25.0-27.0 billion, versus the consensus of $27.2 billion.

*** Prior guidance called for FY15 EPS of $4.85 - $5.05 and revenue of $26.3 - $28.0 billion.

Qualcomm sees Q3 2015 EPS of $0.85-$1.00, versus the consensus of $1.14. Qualcomm sees Q3 2015 revenue of $5.4-6.2 billion, versus the consensus of $6.50 billion.

Business Outlook

The following statements are forward looking, and actual results may differ materially. The "Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in this news release provides a description of certain risks that we face, and our most recent annual and quarterly reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provide a more complete description of risks.

Our outlook does not include provisions for future asset impairments or for pending legal matters, other than future legal amounts that are probable and estimable. Further, due to their nature, certain income and expense items, such as realized investment and certain derivative gains or losses, cannot be accurately forecast. Accordingly, we only include such items in our financial outlook to the extent they are reasonably certain; however, actual results may differ materially from the outlook.

We are reducing our outlook for our semiconductor business, QCT, for the second half of fiscal 2015 primarily due to:

• The increased impact of customer share shifts within the premium tier, which will reduce our sales of our integrated Snapdragon™ processors and skew our product mix towards modem chipsets in this tier; and
• A decline in our share at a large customer.

In the second quarter of fiscal 2015, we reached a resolution with the NDRC regarding its investigation and agreed to implement a rectification plan that modifies certain of our business practices in China. However, we continue to believe that certain licensees in China are not fully complying with their contractual obligations to report their sales of licensed products to us (which includes 3G/4G units that we believe are not being reported by certain licensees). Additionally, we expect it will take some time for licensees to decide whether to accept the new China terms or retain the terms of their existing agreements and for unlicensed companies that had delayed execution of new licenses pending resolution of the investigation to execute new licenses. We believe that the conclusion of the NDRC investigation will accelerate the resolution of these issues, although the outcome and timing of any resolutions are uncertain. Please refer to our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the second quarter ended March 29, 2015 filed with the SEC for our most recent disclosures regarding the NDRC resolution. Our current outlook for our licensing business, QTL, also reflects the following:

• We estimate global 3G/4G device shipments were approximately 1.37 billion for calendar year 2014. However, due to the issues described above, we do not believe that all of the global 3G/4G device shipments for calendar year 2014 were reported to us within the time periods required by our license agreements. Accordingly, we currently estimate approximately 1.174 billion to 1.190 billion calendar year 2014 3G/4G device shipments were actually reported to us through the first calendar quarter of 2015.
• We expect global 3G/4G device shipments to be approximately 1.52 billion to 1.6 billion for calendar year 2015. At this time, we are not providing a forecast for calendar year 2015 reported 3G/4G device shipments.
• In the following table, we do provide guidance for estimated third fiscal quarter and fiscal 2015 3G/4G total reported device sales. That guidance includes an estimate of some prior period activity (i.e., devices shipped in prior periods) that may be reported to us.

Our outlook for fiscal 2015 includes an estimate of the benefit related to stock repurchases that we plan to complete over the remainder of fiscal 2015.

We have not included any estimates related to the proposed acquisition of CSR plc in our fiscal 2015 outlook. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of the summer of 2015. We expect the acquisition to be accretive to Non-GAAP earnings per share in fiscal 2016, the first full year of combined operations.

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Qualcomm (QCOM) click here.

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