Telling times.
Qualcomm said Wednesday that it is cutting the financial outlook for its chip business as its Snapdragon 810 chip was dropped by a large customer.
“China continues to present significant opportunities for us, particularly with the rollout of 3G/4G LTE multimode, but also presents significant challenges, as our business practices continue to be the subject of an investigation by the China National Development and Reform Commission,” Qualcomm said in a statement. Qualcomm also said that, despite settling one dispute, it still believes some customers in China are underreporting sales of licensed chips amid the government probe.
A Qualcomm representative declined to say which phone maker has dropped the Snapdragon 810, though reports have said the chip has heat issues and that Samsung had pulled the processor from its upcoming Galaxy S6. The 810 has been announced for use in some other products, including the LG Flex 2.
The announcement came as the company released its latest quarterly earnings. The company reported it earned $1.17 per share in earnings, on a higher-than-expected revenue of $7.1 billion. Per-share earnings, excluding certain items, was $1.34, ahead of analysts’ estimates of $1.25.
For the current quarter, Qualcomm said it expects overall company revenue of between $6.5 billion to $7.1 billion, with per-share earnings, excluding charges, of approximately $1.28 to $1.40. That’s roughly in line with what analysts had been expecting. Current estimates forecast $1.28 in per-share earnings and revenue of $6.74 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
However, Qualcomm cut its revenue and earnings forecast for the full year, saying it now expects revenue of $26 billion to $28 billion, down from an earlier forecast of $26.8 billion to $28.8 billion. Full year per-share earnings are now seen between $4.75 and $5.05, down from a prior range of $5.05 to $5.35.
Gavin's Gadgets & Photography 
They probably deserve the hit. While they have made some good progress, as a sector there is also still too much focus on headline “power”, benchmarks etc and too little focus on efficiency. It’s ridiculous – I have a Galaxy S4 as a backup phone and I cant see that more raw power is really needed than that in these devices.
They should be shooting for devices that can last 2-3 days under heavy use, 4-5 days on light usage – accross the board. This means lower clocks, less benchmark focus and device manufacturers should be cutting out the tons of bloat on these things.
So if we have ended up with a flagship product crashing and burning because it is too focused on power then that’s a good lesson.
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