back to article Qualcomm in recovery position following annus horribilis

Fiscal 2023 could be described as an annus horribilis for mobile chipmaker Qualcomm, but the company, like the smartphone market it sells into, sees better times just around the corner. Teens standing in a circle looking at their phones Smartphone recovery that's always around the corner is around the corner READ MORE …

  1. Julian 8

    Saturated market, or do we really want it ?

    So the mobile market is saturated and unless there is something really impressive to come along, upgrades are only incremental now and not worth the issue. Same as desktops / laptops. A few years ago you always wanted the latest and greatest CPU and RAM with options as there was a real benefit. These days not so. If you had a SATA spinner, an SSD one was worth it, but you could do it. Now, the processors are mainly about power saving and the step from SATA to Nvme is one of the faster upgrades you will get.

    Wifi-7. I'd settle for something that is slow, but can go through more obstructions. Who cares if Wifi-7 may offer 1GB (or whatever it can claim to do). I don't use 1GB wired. I'd settle for a Wifi that can get from my office and around my whole house with speeds of 50-100Mbps and not needing me to implement a mesh or powerline to achieve this.

    I can see them making inroads into the CPU market and server class, now that can get interesting

    1. Lurko

      Re: Saturated market, or do we really want it ?

      "I can see them making inroads into the CPU market and server class, now that can get interesting"

      It should. With the big two, Apple, Qualcomm, and Nvidia all making a claim for this space (and that's before Korean chip makers decide that simply stamping out the silicon and their own phone CPUs is no longer enough). If you end up with five or so suppliers with equal-ish technology then the market is commoditised and margins fall. Or they're nowhere near equal and all but a couple will have to admit defeat.

    2. martinusher Silver badge

      Re: Saturated market, or do we really want it ?

      China is a huge market that's now effectively closed to American suppliers. Its not that all parts are restricted but given the reach and momentum of the entire administrative apparatus you can't rely on US suppliers any more so in addition to the lost market for advanced chips you'd expect the market for commodity parts to decline as well.

      IoT I can't figure out at all. It seems an attempt to hijack existing industrial automation techniques, replacing long standing industry standards with far less reliable and potentially proprietary web based communications. Qualcomm hasn't been a player in the industrial market space so effectively has to break into this ecosystem with improved. technologies and practices. Wireless isn't that useful in a factory -- I personally have built prototype servos that had wireless connections,they worked** but I'd be reluctant to use them a live application (and certainly don't want them connected to any significant machinery). Remote sensing might be a better opportunity (e.g. so-called Intelligent Meters) but they're really a tool for marketing types who are trying to figure out how to sell the same amount of power at a significantly higher price (and they rely on a potentially unreliable communications medium -- and you can't keep changing out your equipment every year or so like you're encouraged to do with smartphones).++

      (Industrial and automotive is a different world to business / entertainment computing which is why you never see references to companies such as Texas Instruments on this website.)

      (**We're talking industrial servos, not the smaller devices that you'd find in a model aircraft. The boundary between the two sorts is a bit blurry.)

      (++Utilities have been using remote sensing and control for decades. They couldn't run a grid without it.)

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Justthefacts Silver badge

        Re: Saturated market, or do we really want it ?

        IoT I can't figure out at all.” Most people in the industry agree.

        I think the disconnect comes from a bunch of puff pieces which talk about “Smart Cities” and sales of “a trillion CPUs”. “A trillion” might even be realistic if what they mean by a CPU is an NFC-connected barcode so that supermarket shelves know what’s on them. The problem is, the target price for that application is about 1.3cents each: the market doesn’t really take off until the price is that low, otherwise while NFC tags exist they are only on high-priced items. And for that sort of commodity application, 10% margin is about all you’re going to get. Multiply those up, and you get to a market profit of just a couple of billion dollars. The puff pieces confuse a trillion tags, with a trillion dollars, which it isn’t.

        And then on the other side, they start talking about Smart Cities and streetlamps. But there are only maybe 200M streetlamps in the world. Which just isn’t that many, even if you are selling a $10 widget into them.

        And then finally they start lumping automotive head units into the IoT mix, costing $1000, with $200 silicon content. But forget to mention that there are only 70M car sales annually, of which maybe 10% are remotely in the luxury sector and a “nice” head unit. That’s like a couple hours production at a moderate size silicon fab, not going to pay anyones mortgage with that. And again trying to throw fairy dust on it by mentioning “100 chips per car”…..when those 100 chips are mostly $0.50 sensors. This is not a sector with any profit potential, from the semi industry point-of-view. It’s strictly boutique, and government-subsidy-whores only.

    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Saturated market, or do we really want it ?

      Honestly I've never purchased a new phone until my current one broke in a way that resisted repair. I'm hoping my current one lasts for a while (longer than the past couple of Android handsets), as it's a Motorola G Power with a nice 1Ah battery and can go days between charges. That might be the first time that I've felt a new phone actually delivered an improvement over my old one since I got my first Symbian S60 phone; everything else has been at best a lateral move.

  2. IgorS

    Low power is a differentiator

    For mobile devices, low power is sorta obvious.

    But even for desktops and datacenter, we are getting to a point where the power starts to be a real issue.

    Apart from the electricity costs, all the noise created by the cooling solutions is just obnoxious.

    The alternative is direct liquid cooling, with its own set of problems (and costs).

    Here is where Qualcomm has a real chance.

    NVIDIA has gone too much into the "high power" business lately, so they are likely vulnerable, too.

    1. John H Woods

      Re: Low power is a differentiator

      I'm sensing a mild buy signal?

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