Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon (pictured) was bullish about his company’s prospects during a fiscal Q2 earnings call due to continued growth across its automotive division and robust demand for premium tier and AI-enabled devices.

The CEO has been on a mission to broaden the company’s product portfolio beyond chips for smartphones for several years.

Sales to phone manufacturers in China surged 40 per cent in the first half of the fiscal year, reflecting “our strong competitive positioning and recovery of demand”.

Amon noted flagship Android devices powered by its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip “are seeing strong demand globally, especially in China”.

He explained Xiaomi, Honor, OnePlus Technology, Oppo and Vivo are fuelling demand for its chips and stated Qualcomm isn’t losing market share in China to Huawei.

“I think Huawei entering that market actually increases the overall TAM of premium Android devices,” he said.

Handset chip sales were up slightly to $6.1 billion while its broader QCT figure increased by 1 per cent to $8 billion.

Amon and CFO Akash Palkhiwala stated while handset chip sales have largely rebounded from a post Covid-19 (coronavirus) slump they expect a slight seasonal downturn in Q3 before improvements ramp up in Q4 due to new device launches and the holiday season.

“We’re going to have the launch of our Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip as well,” he said. “We’re extremely excited about what the chip does and the launches that will come with that chip later in the year”.

Amon also stated he was excited about the AI-enabled Snapdragon Elite X chips launching soon in the Microsoft Windows ecosystem for use in laptops and PCs.

The vendor’s chipset business was boosted by the automotive segment which reported sales of $603 million for a 35 per cent increase. Amon noted it was the third consecutive quarter of record automotive revenue.

“We’re very pleased with the continued progress on our growth and diversification strategy,” Ammon said. “Beyond handsets, we have established leadership positions across automotive, XR and networking, and we are well positioned to do the same in PCs, industrial and edge AI”.

On the flip side, the company’s Internet of Things sector – comprised of lower-cost chips – contracted 11 per cent to $1.2 billion.

Qualcomm’s QTL licencing business saw revenue increase by 2 per cent to $1.32 billion.

The vendor booked total revenue of $9.9 billion for fiscal Q2 2024 (the period ended 24 March 2024), up slightly year over year, with net profit rising 37 per cent to $2.3 billion.