Qualcomm flies high in Q3, but warns of descent

Qualcomm boosted revenue and sales impressively in the last quarter, but cautioned of troubled quarters ahead as legal and competitive pressures take their toll on the chipset maker’s bottom line.

Qualcomm boosted profits to $1.13 billion, up 84% year-over-year in the fiscal 4^th quarter, off of $2.31 billion in revenues. For the fiscal year, Qualcomm shipped 253 million of its Mobile Station Modem (MSM) handset chips, a 22% increase over 2006. The vendor’s projections for the current fiscal year, however, weren’t so rosy, coming in a 4% to 7% less than financial analysts projected. The reasons are Qualcomm’s numerous rows with companies around the world, which this year produced regulatory and legal rulings that are eating into Qualcomm’s core licensing and chip sales businesses.

Qualcomm said it is not recording licensing revenue from Nokia, the world’s largest handset manufacturer, as the companies failed to reach a new patent licensing agreement for cellular technologies earlier this year. On the regulatory side, a International Trade Commission decision banned the import of 3G handsets with Qualcomm chips into the country. While Qualcomm managed to find its way around the ban so the flow of 3G handsets proceeded unimpeded, the decision spooked several of Qualcomm’s customers. On top of all that, Qualcomm is accumulating legal fees from the dozens of lawsuits and regulatory investigations it is subject to and instigator of the world over. Qualcomm said it expects to spend $200 million in legal fees in 2008.