NEW YORK-Qualcomm Inc. closed out its fiscal year with a flourish, as sales in Asia helped bring about a return to profitability, the company reported Nov. 7.
Revenues rose to $3 billion, a 13-percent increase from the prior year’s $2.7 billion. Net income followed suit, rebounding smartly to $360 million, or 44 cents per share, compared with a loss of $578 million, or 76 cents per share, the previous year.
During the fourth quarter, Qualcomm also achieved significant gains, earning revenues of $873.9 million, a 34-percent uptick from the $650.8 million in revenues reported a year earlier. Net income for the latest quarter was $190.28 million, or 24 cents per share. By contrast, the company posted a net loss of $75.1 million, or 10 cents per share, during the fourth quarter of its 2001 fiscal year.
San Diego-based Qualcomm released its results late in the trading day, and its Nasdaq-listed stock closed down 91 cents at $34.94. However, in after-hours trading the shares rose to $36.50. Qualcomm’s stock has reached a 52-week high of $62.49 and a 52-week low of $23.21.
“We continue to execute on our strategy for increasing global acceptance of our technology, and these efforts bore fruit with the commercial launch of the first CDMA network in China, the first two commercial deployments of our high-speed cdma2000 1xEV-DO networks in South Korea and . in the United States with Monet Mobile, and the successful introduction of our BREW applications development platform in South Korea, Japan and the United States,” said Dr. Irwin Jacobs, Qualcomm’s chairman and chief executive officer.
“Among the reasons for our success are the economic benefits and competitive differentiation that cdma2000 1x and 1xEV-DO are providing to 20 wireless operators in 11 countries today, and many more to come. We extended our lead by continuing to deliver on schedule a broad family of highly integrated and feature-rich CDMA chipsets, and we achieved record MSM (Mobile Station Mobile) shipments this fiscal year. These next-generation chipsets enable new devices with advanced features, such as digital cameras, position location and streaming video.”
Qualcomm said it expects that 85 million CDMA mobile phones will be sold this year and 100 million to 105 million next year.
For the first quarter of 2003, the company estimates shipments of 25 million to 27 million MSM phone chips, of which 21 million to 22 million will be cdma2000 1x.
