NEW YORK.- Qualcomm Inc posted a quarterly profit that rose 24 percent on Wednesday, handily beating Wall Street estimates on strong demand for high-end mobile phones using its chips and technology licenses.
Its shares rose as much as 3.5 percent in after hours trade after the company also raised its full-year earnings and revenue outlook on rising average phone prices.
Qualcomm’s net profit rose to $798 million, or 47 cents share for its fiscal third quarter ended in June, from $643 million, or 37 cents a share in the year-ago quarter.
Excluding its investment arm, Qualcomm said it earned 55 cents per share compared with average analyst expectations for 51 cents per share, according to Reuters Estimates.
Revenue rose to $2.33 billion from $1.95 billion a year ago and compared with analyst revenue estimates of $2.26 billion.
Cowen & Co analyst Matthew Hoffman said Qualcomm’s technology royalty business appeared to have been boosted by higher-than-expected average selling prices for phones, boosting its third-quarter and its fourth-quarter outlook.
«Clearly, they had very strong June quarter results. It was a solid top line beat, a good portion of which fell to the bottom line,» said Hoffman, also noting that Qualcomm’s outlook had beaten consensus estimates.
Qualcomm raised its estimate for average selling prices for mobile phones to $216 for its fiscal year 2007, ending in September, up from its previous estimate of $208, likely indicating strong demand for high-end phones, Hoffman said.
Excluding its investment arm, Qualcomm forecast full-year 2007 earnings per share of $1.95 to $1.97, up from its previous forecast of $1.84 to $1.88. This compared with average analyst estimates for $1.91 per share, according to Reuters Estimates.
It raised its revenue outlook for the year to a range of $8.72 billion to $8.82 billion from its earlier expectation for revenue of $8.4 billion to $8.7 billion and above analyst expectations for revenue of $8.71 billion.
The company forecast fiscal fourth-quarter net earnings per share of 41 cents to 43 cents on revenue of $2.15 billion to $2.25 billion.
Excluding its investment arm, Qualcomm said it expects earnings per share of 48 cents to 50 cents per share.
Analysts on average were expecting fourth-quarter earnings of 47 cents per share on revenue of $2.2 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
Qualcomm — the main chip supplier for phones based on CDMA, the mostly widely used mobile phone technology in the United States — faces several legal cases including a government ban on the U.S. sale of some phones with its chips.
Qualcomm shares were up 1.9 percent at $43.28 in late trade after closing at $42.45 in regular Nasdaq trade.
It has been battling chip maker Broadcom Corp in patent infringement cases, one of which led the U.S. International Trade Commission on June 7 to ban the U.S. import and sale of new high-speed wireless phones with Qualcomm chips. The ban exempted phones already being imported on June 7.
San Diego-based Qualcomm has also been embroiled in a bitter dispute with leading mobile phone maker Nokia after they failed to renew a technology license contract that expired in April.
Qualcomm also makes chips and sells technology licenses for phones based on W-CDMA, a wireless standard popular in Europe and other parts of the world.
Fuente: Reuters
