Qualcomm chip sales down 25 percent, plans layoffs

Enlarge (credit: Qualcomm)

Smartphone sales are down across the board, and that means component vendors like Qualcomm are also feeling the heat. The company's Q3 2023 earnings (Qualcomm's fiscal year is October-September) have handset chip sales down 25 percent year over year, with net income down 52 percent year over year. The company also issued lower-than-expected guidance for the next quarter, all causing the stock to drop around 8 percent in the aftermath of the call.

Like most other tech companies, Qualcomm's response to the less-than-stellar earnings is to cut costs via layoffs. Earlier this year the company cut 415 jobs at its San Diego headquarters, but the company's securities filing revealed more cuts are coming.

"Given the continued uncertainty in the macroeconomic and demand environment, we expect to take additional restructuring actions" the filing says. "While we are in the process of developing our plans, we currently expect these actions to consist largely of workforce reductions, and in connection with any such actions we would expect to incur significant additional restructuring charges, a substantial portion of which we expect to incur in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023. We currently anticipate these additional actions to be substantially completed in the first half of fiscal 2024." Qualcomm has around 51,000 employees.