QCOMQualcomm
We incorporated in California in 1985 and reincorporated in Delaware in 1991. 10-K, Item 1
- Headquarters
- San Diego, CA
- CEO
- Cristiano R. Amon
- Next results
- around Feb 3, 2027
16 paragraphs in Risk Factors of the 10-K filed Nov 4, 2026 with nothing like them in the 10-K filed Nov 5, 2025. Quoted exactly. Paragraphs that were only edited are under 10-K change.
Compared with the Risk Factors in the latest 10-K of the other 74 Technology companies: a paragraph with at least half its words the same at another company is called similar, and the companies are listed under it. A paragraph most of them have is marked boilerplate. No line means no other company has one like it. This counts text; it does not say how serious a risk is.
•Our increasing focus on artificial intelligence (AI), including on-device AI, agentic AI and AI infrastructure, may not result in the anticipated benefits and could expose us to additional competitive, regulatory, intellectual property and operational risks.
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Although we expect to derive an increasing portion of our revenues from areas outside of mobile handsets, such as automotive, IoT and data center, we continue to derive a significant portion of our revenues from a small number of mobile handset customers and licensees, and particularly from their sale of premium-tier handset devices. Device share in the mobile industry, particularly at the premium tier, is concentrated among a few companies, including Apple, Samsung and certain Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), many of whom are or have in the past been our largest customers. This concentration means that the loss of any one of our key mobile handset customers, or a significant reduction in purchases from any such customer, whether due to such customer’s use of their own integrated circuit products (i.e., vertical integration) or our competitors’ integrated circuit products, government restrictions, a decline in global, regional or local economic conditions, a decline in consumer demand or any other reason, would have a significant negative impact on our business. For example, Apple has historically purchased our modem products for use in its devices and has historically been one of our largest customers, but we expect that Apple will primarily use its own internally developed modem products, rather than our products, in its devices going forward. This will have a significant negative impact on our QCT revenues, results of operations and cash flows, and our ability to offset that impact depends on the timing and magnitude of growth in our non-handset revenues, including in automotive, IoT and data center, which may not occur as anticipated. See also “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, Note 2. Composition of Certain Financial Statement Items - Concentrations.”
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Further, as we seek to grow and diversify our business in areas such as automotive, IoT and data center, we may also
derive a significant portion of revenues in such areas from a limited number of customers, hyperscalers, automakers or other industry participants.
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For example, the automotive industry is subject to long design-in time frames, long product life cycles and a high degree of regulatory, safety and other requirements (including, in some cases, customer requirements to meet certain sustainability, climate or other environmental or social-related targets), necessitating suppliers to the industry to comply with stringent qualification processes, very low defect rates and high reliability standards. The data center industry is characterized by a limited number of large hyperscalers and cloud service providers, long qualification and deployment cycles, demanding performance, power efficiency, reliability, security and software requirements, and substantial ecosystem and infrastructure dependencies. Many of our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories in this industry, more established customer relationships, broader software and developer ecosystems, greater experience supporting large-scale data center deployments and, in some cases, existing installed bases or vertically integrated platform offerings.
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Our increasing focus on artificial intelligence (AI), including on-device AI, agentic AI and AI infrastructure, may not result in the anticipated benefits and could expose us to additional competitive, regulatory, intellectual property and operational risks.
AI technologies, including machine learning, generative AI, agentic AI and other data driven computational techniques, are increasingly important to our strategy across mobile, automotive, IoT, data center and other industries and applications, and we are investing significant engineering, research and development and other resources to integrate AI capabilities into our integrated circuit products, software platforms and system solutions. These investments are subject to a high degree of uncertainty and may not generate operating income or contribute to future results of operations or cash flows that meet our expectations, on the timeline we anticipate or at all.
The successful adoption and monetization of AI-enabled products depends on numerous factors beyond our control, including consumer demand, the willingness of customers to pay for AI-enabled functionality, the development of compelling AI use cases, competition from alternative architectures or cloud-based solutions, and the extent to which our customers develop or deploy proprietary AI technologies through vertical integration. If AI workloads shift toward competing platforms or architectures that do not rely on our products, or if end-user demand for AI-enabled products or functionality does not materialize as anticipated, our revenues, margins and results of operations could be negatively impacted.
AI technologies also may expose us to legal, regulatory, cybersecurity, privacy, intellectual property, operational and reputational risks. AI algorithms, models or training methodologies may be flawed, and datasets or outputs may be inaccurate, insufficient, biased, misleading or otherwise controversial. Our use of AI tools in our internal operations, or the use of AI-enabled products, tools or technologies by our customers, developers, vendors or other third parties, may result in inadvertent disclosure or misuse of confidential, proprietary, personal or competitively sensitive information, reliance on inaccurate or flawed outputs, cybersecurity or privacy incidents, claims of infringement or misuse of data, regulatory scrutiny, litigation or use that is inconsistent with our expectations, policies, controls or applicable laws and regulations.
If any of these risks materialize, our AI-related investments may not achieve the anticipated benefits, and our business, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.
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In addition, we license for use in our products certain technologies and intellectual property from Arm, such as the Arm instruction set architecture. Arm has recently become a supplier of integrated circuit products, putting itself in direct competition with its licensees. As a result, our ability to obtain a license to Arm’s latest technologies and intellectual property, including on acceptable terms and time frames, has been and may continue to be impacted. If we are unable to obtain an acceptable license, our ability to compete effectively would be harmed and we could experience significant impacts to our future products and business.
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Our manufacturing operations depend on securing raw materials, equipment and other supplies in adequate quality and quantity in a timely manner from multiple suppliers, and in some cases, we rely on a limited number of suppliers, including in some cases sole suppliers, particularly in Asia. There may be cases where supplies of raw materials, equipment and other products are interrupted or limited by natural disaster, geopolitical conflict, accident or some other event affecting a supplier
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In addition, employees and former employees, in particular former employees who become employees of our competitors, customers, licensees or other third parties, including state actors, have in the past and may in the future
Similar paragraph at 1 of 74 other Technology companies: MCHPRead in the 10-K ↗
3 more
Further, some third parties have proposed significant changes to existing intellectual property policies for implementation by SDOs and other industry organizations with the goal of significantly devaluing standard-essential patents.
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shipment delays and/or cause damage to our customer relationships, any of which could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and cash flows.
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including employee compensation costs, reduce demand for our products or those of our customers or licensees due to increased prices of those products, or result in employee attrition to the extent our compensation does not keep up with inflation, particularly if our competitors’ compensation does.
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New in the latest 10-Q
10 paragraphs in the 10-Q filed Jul 29, 2026 with nothing like them in the 10-Q filed Apr 29, 2026 (at least half the words must differ; new numbers alone do not count). Quoted exactly, grouped by the item heading above them. This is text that changed, not a judgement of how serious it is.
Financial statements and notes
(1) Primarily consist of net unrealized gains related to certain marketable equity securities.
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(1) Primarily consists of equity securities in certain QSI investees that have completed initial public offerings, which remain subject to short-term lock-up restrictions on the ability to sell.
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Modular. On July 28, 2026, we completed the acquisition of Modular Inc (Modular). Modular provides an open, AI-native software platform that enables AI to run efficiently across hardware architectures. The acquisition of Modular is expected to strengthen the software foundation for generative and agentic AI across data center and edge environments. The transaction values Modular at approximately $ 3.1 billion based on the closing price of Qualcomm stock on the acquisition date, with consideration transferred consisting primarily of 18 million shares issued of our common stock. This included 4 million shares with an estimated fair value of approximately $ 700 million that were issued to certain executives and are subject to a four-year service requirement post-acquisition, of which a portion will be recognized as compensation expense and the remaining amount included as a component of the purchase price. Due to the timing of the acquisition, it is not practicable to disclose the preliminary allocation of the purchase price to the assets acquired and the liabilities assumed.
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• Investment and other income, net increased by $656 million compared to the year ago quarter, primarily due to higher net gains from initial public offerings of certain QSI equity investments.
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+ $24 million increase in expenses driven by the revaluation of our deferred compensation obligation (which resulted in a corresponding increase in net gains on deferred compensation plan assets within investment and other income, net due to the revaluation of the related assets)
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- $25 million in lower royalty revenues recognized related to devices sold in prior periods
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- $65 million in lower royalty revenues recognized related to devices sold in prior periods
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• The semiconductor industry is experiencing a broad-based increase in input costs and capacity constraints across wafer fabrication, assembly, test, advanced packaging, memory and other materials, due in part to increasing demand for leading-edge technologies, AI and data center applications. As a result, we continue to see increased product costs from certain of our key suppliers, which could negatively impact our margins. Further, if these supply and capacity constraints limit the availability of components, manufacturing capacity or related services from our suppliers, we may be unable to fully satisfy customer demand, which could result in lost or delayed revenue and adversely affect our results of operations, cash flows and financial condition.
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Market risk
Equity Price Risk. At June 28, 2026, the recorded value of our marketable equity securities was $926 million. Certain of our marketable equity investments are in growth stage public companies, and the fair values of these investments have been and may continue to be subject to increased volatility.
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Other information
During the quarter ended June 28, 2026, none of our directors or officers (as defined in Rule 16a-1(f) of the Exchange Act) adopted or terminated a “Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement” or “non-Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement,” as each term is defined in Item 408 of Regulation S-K.
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