Qualcomm's Q4 2026 earnings, for the fiscal fourth quarter ended September 27, 2026, showed revenue falling as its core handset-chip business shrank, offset by fast growth in automotive chips. The company reported results on November 4, 2026 in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Total revenue was $10.32 billion on a GAAP basis, down 8% from $11.27 billion a year earlier. Non-GAAP revenue, which Qualcomm said came in at the high end of its guidance, was $10.44 billion. Adjusted earnings were $2.17 per share, down 28% from $3.00 a year earlier. On a GAAP basis the company earned $1.17 per share, a swing from a loss of $2.89 in the year-ago quarter, when a large tax charge dragged results into the red.

Handsets down, automotive up

The story under the headline was a shift in Qualcomm's mix. Its chip division, QCT, posted revenue of $9.02 billion, down 8%. Within that, the handset business, long Qualcomm's engine, fell 26% to $5.14 billion. The company has warned for years that it needs to reduce its dependence on smartphone chips, and the quarter showed why.

The bright spot was automotive. Those chip sales rose 89% to $1.99 billion, the first quarter the automotive line has topped $2 billion. The internet-of-things business added 4% to $1.89 billion. Qualcomm's licensing arm, QTL, which collects royalties on the patents behind modern mobile standards, brought in $1.30 billion, down 7%.

QTL remains Qualcomm's most profitable line: its earnings before taxes ran at about 70% of its revenue in the quarter, against roughly 24% for the chip division. That is why the renewal of long-term licensing agreements, which keep those royalties flowing, matters as much to Qualcomm's profit as the headline chip numbers. The chip division's profitability slipped too, with its pretax margin down from a year earlier as the richer handset mix gave way to lower-margin lines.

The full-year picture and a one-time tax benefit

For all of fiscal 2026, Qualcomm reported revenue of $43.12 billion on a GAAP basis, down from $44.28 billion in fiscal 2025, and adjusted earnings of $10.54 per share, against $12.03 a year earlier. GAAP earnings were $12.70 per share, a figure inflated by a one-time item: the company said full-year GAAP results included a $5.7 billion income tax benefit, worth $5.32 per share, from releasing a valuation allowance. Stripping that out, the adjusted figure is the cleaner read on the underlying business.

The tax item also explains an odd-looking comparison in the quarter. On a GAAP basis Qualcomm swung from a loss of $2.89 a share a year ago to a profit of $1.17, but that is largely because the year-ago quarter carried a heavy tax charge that pushed GAAP into the red even though the business was profitable on an adjusted basis. Comparing the adjusted figures, $2.17 against $3.00, gives the truer sense of how the underlying quarter changed.

Qualcomm also pointed to deals it hopes will carry the next phase of growth. It cited renewed long-term licensing agreements with Apple, Huawei and Transsion, and an artificial-intelligence data-center collaboration with Amazon.

"We are pleased to deliver fourth quarter non-GAAP revenues at the high end of our guidance, along with 36% year-over-year growth in combined QCT Automotive and IoT revenues," said Cristiano Amon, president and CEO of Qualcomm. He added that fiscal 2027 "marks the start of our non-handset revenue inflection, including the ramp of our Data Center business."

What Qualcomm told investors to expect

For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Qualcomm guided to revenue of $10.4 billion to $11.2 billion and adjusted earnings of $2.15 to $2.35 per share. On a GAAP basis it guided to $1.03 to $1.23 per share. The company said that guidance is inclusive of its new data-center line, and it reiterated a target of $5 billion in data-center revenue in fiscal 2027. It also said it expects non-handset revenue to grow more than 60% year over year.

Those are the company's own projections, reported here as what management said rather than as a forecast by this publication. Guidance is an estimate, and chipmakers often revise it as orders and the broader cycle shift.

How to read a quarter like this

A revenue decline is not, by itself, a verdict. Qualcomm is deliberately leaning away from its biggest and most mature market, smartphone chips, and toward automotive, the internet of things and data centers. That transition shows up as a weaker handset line and a stronger automotive one in the same report. Whether it works depends on the next several quarters, not this one.

The release also shows why adjusted and GAAP numbers can diverge so widely. The $5.7 billion tax benefit lifted full-year GAAP earnings well above the adjusted figure, while a year earlier a tax charge pushed GAAP into a loss even as the adjusted business was profitable. Reading both, and understanding which one-time items sit between them, is the work; our guide to reading a company earnings report walks through the same mechanics.

What to watch next

Three questions follow from this report. Can automotive keep its momentum after its first quarter above $2 billion? Does the data-center business, which Qualcomm is counting on, actually ramp toward the $5 billion target the company has set? And can the licensing arm hold steady now that the Apple, Huawei and Transsion agreements are renewed? The handset decline is the known headwind; the non-handset lines are the test. For how Qualcomm's quarter sits against the wider chip cycle, compare it with AMD's latest results.