The Street is preparing for Qualcomm’s (QCOM) fiscal Q1 report, due out Wednesday after market close, and they are figuring that Qualcomm’s results and outlook for the current quarter will have something to do with Apple (AAPL) and Samsung Electronics (SSNLF).
Following blow-out results by Apple last Tuesday, driven by gargantuan sales of the iPhone, and a strong Q4 showing by Samsung on Friday, both RBC Capital’s Mark Sue and Sanford Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon took the opportunity to adjust their estimates.
Rasgon reiterates an Outperform rating and raises his price target to $71 from $70, while raising his Q1 view to $4.59 billion in revenue and 90 cents EPS from a prior $4.56 billion and 89 cents. His full-year view goes to $18.83 billion and $3.71 per share from a prior $18.61 billion and $3.62.
Rasgon is modeling chipset shipments of 155 million units last quarter, ahead of the company’s own forecast for 150 million, give or take 4 million.
Rasgon sees chipset sales in Q4 being followed by a boost to licensing revenue this quarter, writing “We believe strong CQ4 iPhone 4S shipments (likely producing some upside to chipsets in FQ1) will also lead to elevated licensing revenues in FQ2, additionally bolstered by what appears to be extremely strong overall industry smartphone shipments in CQ4.”
RBC’s Sue reiterates an Outperform rating on Qualcomm shares, and a $75 price target.
He describes the overall smartphone situation coalescing into a duopoly, which is certainly what it looks like when one just looks at the smartphone numbers compiled by analysts.
“Smartphone unit growth is accelerating while Apple and Samsung are gaining share from just about everyone else, which is providing a positive backdrop for Qualcomm.”
Sue thinks Qualcomm may reach $4.75 billion for the quarter and 92 cents a share, slightly higher than he’s been estimating, with chipsets above 150 million units.
Sue writes that this year will be “noisier” thanks to competing products form Broadcom (BRCM) and Intel (INTC), but he also sees the company riding the wave of LTE in a big way:
LTE is in its early days, led by Korea, North America, and Japan. North America carriers are set to accelerate their LTE device rollouts. Verizon started CY12 with 18 LTE devices on its network and another six in 1Q12. Globally, LTE may reach ~30M units in 2012. Key Qualcomm LTE wins include the Samsung Galaxy Note (U.S. version), Nokia�s Lumia 900, HTC Titan II, and Sony Ericsson Xperia ion. The Windows Phone 8 launch slated for mid-2012 may provide some upside as well. From a clock speed and performance point of view, Qualcomm�s 8960 seems to be the chip to beat.
Qualcomm shares are down 24 cents, or 0.4%, at $57.55.
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