Thread regarding Qualcomm Inc. layoffs

The market is flooded with all kinds of innovative chips and throw away price. Q is yet another supplier fighting for the last cent. Sure, it will make profit at the cost of opex shavings for some time while its still able to milk the last $ from its IP portfolio.

Don't get me wrong, its like a competition in selling bath soap or tooth brush.

5G is a buzz word on the street, sure it will have the similar story as that of 3.5G. You can sample it for yourself, just ask you friends/family if they want more speed and/or how frequently they want to recycle their phone to get a idea.

Keep cutting costs. Now FTC wants you to give IP licenses to all others. Qualcomm game over.

Qualcomm does not have a lock on 5G and if anyone thinks they do they're living a pipe dream.

Move on ?

When the leader in the cell phone market is Apple and you don’t sell anything to it. That means you don’t have any income and you have to cut your costs. The bigest cost of a company is its payroll and salaries.

So the only way to move on is to lay off everybody.

Its business world. Transactional relationships are for business purposes. Smile till you get paid by customers. No hard feelings. Hurre! This fact is universal for every customer centric relationship- whether that is between employee and employer or between companies. So no need to give lengthy lecture. Shut up and get to work.

All money made in premium tier, no apple, you left with winning at Samsung. Samsung using own solution in premium tier, good luck with that. Smartphone space is commoditized, fewer people upgrading due to price of phone equals slower market. Lower chipset sales and chipset share means reduced collection on royalties. No one is paying royalties if there is no way to track back to QCOM chip. 5G will be a crowded space, nothing is guaranteed that QCOM will be leader. Even if they are, go back and look at Hoc presentation, QCOM was the dominant vendor in 4G but was unable to monetize leadership. Couple that with failed investments in adjacent markets and you have no other revenue streams. Save me the discussion on IoT, re-purposing smartphone chips in that segment is hardly a recipe for success. The failings of this leadership are many other than filling their bank accounts. GD gets to do what he loves to do, open up his clamshell and dial more layoffs, commence the 2nd wave.

The reality is even Intel days are numbered. Because

1) Apple is known to ditch its customers (like they did to Q)

2) Intel should know they can (and will) get cut anytime, and they are not supplying modems to anybody else. So resources to innovate modem would not be a priority.

In 2 years, if 5G takes off, Q would be market leaders, and Apple would have no choice but to use ours. We may then get into the drivers seat. For now (atleast 2 years), Q stock would be a laughing stock until the numbers speak.