Qualcomm, the main manufacturer of chips and processors for the smartphone market, experienced, like everyone else, a very complicated year 2020. With the shutdown of its factories and the postponement of the release of several models, the results for this quarter had everything to be bad. But ultimately, a report published this week shows a turnover of more than $8 billion.
A clear increase compared to the summer of 2019 when the company's turnover was around $5 billion. An increase which is explained by a payment from Huawei first, of one and a half billion dollars. But in addition to this 9-figure bill, Qualcomm was able to count onits new client, Apple. If the sale of iPhone 12 has not yet impacted Apple's figures for this fourth financial quarter (July-August-September), Qualcomm for its part has not thanked the Cupertino firm.
Despite everything, Steve Mollenkopf, the CEO of the company, declared that if Qualcomm's turnover was much better than last year, we will still have to wait until the end of 2020 to see them improve. take off, thanks to the (great) help of the iPhone 12.
Qualcomm — Apple: from enemies to friends?
Earlier this year the two companies ended nearly 10 years of litigation. Qualcomm even gained “the right” to work for Apple. The Cupertino company will indeed remainQualcomm customer until 2023at least. Particularly with regard to5G modems,exclusive production of Qualcomm for the iPhones of today, and therefore, of tomorrow.
Although Apple bought Intel's branch dedicated to 5G modems for a billion dollars. Apple's technologies do not yet seem ready. The partnership with Qualcomm will therefore serve as a transition between Intel modems and those that Apple will one day offer.
For its part, Qualcomm has acquired a first-choice customer with the Apple brand, and thus easily fills its order book. The announcement of the company's turnover for the last quarter of 2020 will be very interesting to follow, just to measure the real impact of the iPhone 12 and this new range on the Californian company.
