Nakul Duggal, senior vice president of automotive product management at Qualcomm Technologies Inc., is silhouetted while speaking during the company's news conference at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 7, 2019. , David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
The outlook showed that the market for consumer devices is eroding faster than feared, sending Qualcomm shares plunging as much as 8.4 per cent. Even before the report, the stock was down 38 per cent this year, hurt by concerns that smartphone demand was on shaky ground. Qualcomm’s main product is the processor that runs many of the world’s smartphones. It also sells the modem chips that connect Apple Inc.’s iPhone to high-speed data networks.
There is one silver lining, though. The company had expected Apple to start replacing most of Qualcomm’s 5G modems in the iPhone next year with homegrown parts. That’s no longer expected to happen in 2023. Apple also has suffered from Covid disruptions in China, including the lockdown of a Foxconn Technology Group complex in Zhengzhou this week.