Qualcomm to Book $4.5B After Apple Deal
Qualcomm will book a whopping $4.5-$4.7 billion in third quarter revenues as part of the litigation settlement it struck with Apple in mid-April.
The funds include both past due patent royalties Apple will pay and Qualcomm’s release from obligations to the iPhone designer and its contract manufacturers.
The windfall will more than double third quarter revenues for the mobile chip giant amid a smartphone market where it sees continued weakness.
In a quarterly conference call, Qualcomm executives pointed to an on-going share buy-back program and a roughly $300 million increase in employee bonuses.
Qualcomm also dialed back its 2019 handset forecast to about 1.85 billion units, shaving 50 million units off its projections due to weakness especially in China.
Excluding Apple's payment, Qualcomm estimated $4.7 billion to $5.5 billion in revenue.
Qualcomm estimated $1.23 billion to $1.33 billion in revenue for its licensing business in the third quarter.
Revenue fell to $4.88 billion.
A judge in San Jose is still expected to rule in a suit against Qualcomm brought by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC asked the court to prohibit Qualcomm from requiring a patent license as a condition of selling its chips, a key sticking point in the two-year dispute between Apple and Qualcomm.
The judge’s decision in the FTC case could force Qualcomm to renegotiate some of its licensing deals and rates. It also could force it to license rival chip vendors with its standard-essential patents.
Qualcomm hopes the Apple deal encourages a licensing settlement with Huawei, the last big hold out among handset makers. Qualcomm is lobbying for a return to 2014 deal the two struck about the time regulators reset Qualcomm patent rates in China. In an interim deal, Huawei currently pays Apple $150 million per quarter in royalties.