Qualcomm CFO: Strong results show company's "transformation" is working
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) got a boost in after-hours trading, Wednesday, following better-than-expected quarterly results that Chief Financial Officer Akash Palkhiwala said demonstrated the early success of the technology giant's diversification strategy.
"We're more and more becoming a processing company more than a communications company," Palkhiwala told Seeking Alpha in an interview following the release of Qualcomm's (QCOM) first-quarter earnings report. "We're very excited about this transformation."
Palkhiwala spoke as Qualcomm (QCOM) said it earned $3.21 a share, excluding one-time items, on revenue of $11.16 billion, compared to earnings of $1.90 a share, on $7.93 billion in revenue in the same period a year ago. Qualcomm's (QCOM) results surpassed the estimates of Wall Street analysts, who had forecast the company to earn $2.92 a share, on $10.6 billion.
Those results helped lift Qualcomm's (QCOM) shares by more than 4% in after-hours trading.
Among Qualcomm's (QCOM) two main business lines, QCT sales, which includes revenue from products used in mobile phone handsets, software and broadband systems, climbed by 52% from a year ago, to $9.55 billion. Qualcomm's (QCOM) QTL revenue, which encompasses wireless and mobile technology licensing, came in at $1.58 billion, or 2% less than that from the first quarter of 2021.
Palkhiwala said that while the mobile-phone market is becoming "mature," the needs of the market represent broad new opportunities for Qualcomm (QCOM).
"What's happening with total units is one story," Palkhiwala said. "But the amount of content for handsets is shifting to premium and higher-priced instruments and that benefits our technologies."
Along with its first-quarter results, Qualcomm (QCOM) also said that for its second-quarter, it expects to earn between $2.75 and $2.95 a share, on revenue in a range of $10.5. billion to $11.3 billion.
Prior to Qualcomm's (QCOM) earnings report, Daiwa analyst Louis Miscioscia placed Qualcomm (QCOM) on his top picks list due the company having "a number of growth drivers" beyond the 5G technology market.