Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) stock has climbed roughly 37% over the past six months, even after absorbing a 21% pullback over the most recent three-month stretch.
The company’s next growth chapter is being built outside of smartphones, where management expects non-handset expansion to more than compensate for a rapidly shrinking Apple business.
Automotive revenue has already validated that strategy, rising 61% year over year in fiscal Q3 2026, marking another record quarter for the segment.
In April, management projected an automotive annual run rate above $6 billion for fiscal 2026, and by July that figure had been revised upward to approximately $7 billion.
BMW selected Qualcomm as its lead compute silicon provider for next-generation ADAS and digital cockpit systems, underlining the depth of the company’s penetration into premium vehicle platforms.
Management described the fifth-generation Snapdragon digital chassis as the largest content jump between generations in Qualcomm’s history, with production ramp beginning in September.
The Apple situation is deteriorating faster than previously anticipated, with Qualcomm’s own supply constraints contributing to a sharper-than-expected reduction in iPhone modem share.
The company now expects its portion of Apple’s new iPhone launch to fall materially below the 20% it had previously assumed, with Apple product revenue forecast to drop approximately 50% from the September quarter to the December quarter.
Management projects that non-handset revenue growth will accelerate from 24% in fiscal 2026 to more than 60% in fiscal 2027, with that expansion expected to fully replace all of Apple’s fiscal 2026 product revenue contribution.
Data centers represent the newest and most ambitious pillar of that plan, with Qualcomm holding two custom silicon wins at global-scale hyperscalers, purchase orders already in hand, and wafer production already underway.
The customer count has grown across successive earnings calls, expanding from one custom silicon engagement described in April to two confirmed by the July update.
Management has sized data center revenue at $5 billion in fiscal 2027 and $15 billion in fiscal 2029, both figures falling within a broader non-handset target of $40 billion by fiscal 2029, nearly double Qualcomm’s earlier goal.
With trailing revenue currently at $44.07 billion, a $40 billion non-handset target effectively means the automotive and data center businesses alone could approach the scale of today’s entire company.
The first concrete proof point for the data center strategy arrives in the December quarter, when revenue from the two custom silicon wins is expected to begin flowing, giving investors a first hard number against which to measure the fiscal 2027 plan.
The CEO has acknowledged that the data center business is just getting started and that investors are right to demand evidence that a new entrant can execute at hyperscaler scale.
Qualcomm stock has gained more than 30% in under two months on 12 separate occasions since 2010, with the most recent such move occurring in 2026, suggesting the stock remains capable of rapid repricing when catalysts align.
