By Cristiano R. Amon, President and CEO
As this year comes to a close, I want to take this opportunity to wish you happy holidays and outline my vision for the year ahead – and beyond – and share how Qualcomm is working to enable a world where everyone and everything is intelligently connected.
The time for Qualcomm is now
As President and CEO, I am proud of the significant achievements made by our ~45,000 employees worldwide in 2021, and particularly over the last six months. Despite the uncertainty of the pandemic and the challenges of the supply environment, fiscal 2021 brought record revenues, continued diversification beyond handsets, the fifth consecutive quarter of greater than 100% year-over-year EBT growth in our chipset business, and stability in our licensing business.
Building on this strong foundation, I am excited for what 2022 will bring. Demand for our technology is accelerating across virtually every sector as digital transformation and major industry trends lead to Qualcomm. This includes the convergence of mobile and PC, 5G enabling wireless fiber, the merging of physical and digital spaces fueling the metaverse, 5G cloud computing for work mobility, the transformation of the automobile, and much more. And, as billions of devices are becoming connected and smarter, we are creating the connected intelligent edge.
Qualcomm is at the beginning of one of the largest opportunities in our history. Our one technology roadmap, with unparalleled capabilities in wireless communication, high performance, low power computing, and on-device AI, extends from mobile to automotive and IoT, expanding our addressable market by more than 7 times within the next decade.
I truly believe that the time for Qualcomm is now.
The connected intelligent edge: Qualcomm’s opportunity
According to IDC, in the years ahead, 64% of all data will be created outside of traditional datacenters. This means that more intelligent processing will be done on the device – at the edge. Qualcomm sits at the center of this connected intelligent edge opportunity, from smartphones and wearables to tablets, PCs and XR devices, and from edge networking and automobiles to the broad industrial IoT.
The connected intelligent edge is fueling the growth of the cloud, and we are positioned to be the technology partner of choice.
Driving transformative growth
Few companies have the opportunity to create new transformative growth across multiple industries simultaneously. Qualcomm has at least four: computing, virtual and augmented reality, automotive, and industrial.
- The PC’s inevitable transition to Arm: The PC industry has begun to realize the benefits of adopting mobile technologies, architecture and use cases. There is now a rush to design and build next-generation PCs based on these technologies for the future of productivity, education, and connected entertainment. Our early investments, partnership with Microsoft and the recent acquisition of NUVIA positions Qualcomm incredibly well to drive this transition and serve this industry.
- Your ticket to the metaverse: The merging of physical and digital spaces is real and accelerating, with digital twins happening across many industries. Snapdragon XR powers the majority of devices you see today in virtual reality and augmented reality, a trend we see amplifying as the metaverse takes shape. Qualcomm will continue to be at the center of devices enabling consumers and enterprises to enter the digital world.
- The automotive digital chassis: With cars becoming cloud connected, intelligent, autonomous, and a platform for services and innovation, car companies need advanced technology capabilities across multiple domains. Our Snapdragon Digital Chassis is a unique suite of technologies that addresses this need, enabling telematics, intelligent transportation, car-to-cloud, a truly digital cockpit, ADAS, and autonomy. Qualcomm is already working with the top automakers, and most recently, we announced our partnership with General Motors for the Cadillac Lyriq and BMW for their automated driving platform.
- Industry 4.0: Our product offerings are powering the edge devices required for the digital transformation of industries. We’re building scale across automation, retail, logistics, energy, healthcare, and smart cities to name a few. Qualcomm plays a key role in addressing the need for always-on cloud connectivity, advanced on-device processing and AI, and access to real-time data and insights. We have more than 14,000 customers, and we’re just at the beginning of enabling this new ecosystem.
Our ‘one technology roadmap’ is winning
The smartphone is the most cloud connected device in the world. As all other devices get connected to the cloud, they are demanding technologies that have been commercialized in smartphones – including connectivity, on-device intelligence and high performance, low-power computing. These are technologies that we lead in, and so uniquely positions our one technology roadmap to scale and support the broad array of devices at the edge.
In closing, we have the vision, the technologies and the industries best team, that as the world transforms, will enable us to continue to move early and quickly to address new opportunities, and deliver technologies that enable industries and communities to advance.
Once again, Happy New Year, and I look forward to sharing more with you at our earnings call in February.