QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) released its earnings report for the first three months of 2013 this afternoon, Wednesday April 24, after the market closed. The company showed earnings of $1.17 per share for the first quarter of the new year, on revenue of $6.12 billion. On today’s market shares in Qualcomm rose, finishing the day at $66.
In anticipation of this report, analysts were looking for earnings of $1.17 per share for the company on revenues of $6.1 billion. In the same three months of 2012, QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) earned $1.01 per share on revenue of $4.9 billion. In the hours before the numbers were released, Whisper numbers suggested that the company would announce numbers that beat estimates, with EPS of $1.21.
So far in 2013, shares in QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) have risen by around 7 percent. That number puts the firm’s shares behind gains in the wider Nasdaq index of more than 8.5 percent. For the last twelve months shares in the firm have risen by the same factor, while the Nasdaq has gained more than 10 percent.
QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) has been a major beneficiary of the move to smaller more efficient processors for use in mobile devices like tablets and smart phones. The company has not managed to drive its stock price upward like many other players in the industry, however, and it’s led to some frustration among investors.
Earlier this year, QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) decided to raise its dividend by 40 percent, increasing the return for holding the stock, and announced a $5 billion buyback program for its stock. Despite that, the firm’s stock has failed to rise with the expectations on the market meaning there could be trouble ahead for the company.
QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) has never really acted like a hyper growth stock, however. The company is vulnerable to changes in the processor market, but it is one of the more defensive positions investors can take. As mobile devices took over the market in the last five years, and Qualcomm processors were adopted across the industry, stock rose by just 55 percent.
Some big firms have been looking to make investments in the chip maker, and it could be a prime target for a merger in the tech industry. The firm provides chips to many of the major models vying for prominence in the smart phone world, and some would certainly like to be ahead of the competition on processor technology.
