Qualcomm

Qualcomm's NXP acquisition then became a part of the 2018 China–United States trade war. U.S. president Donald Trump blocked China-based ZTE Corporation from buying American-made components, such as those from Qualcomm. The ZTE restriction was lifted after the two countries reached an agreement, but then Trump raised tariffs against Chinese goods. Qualcomm extended a tender offer to NXP at least 29 times pending Chinese approval, before abandoning the deal in July 2018.

In January 2021, Qualcomm appointed its president and chip division head Cristiano Amon as its new chief executive.

In January 2021, Qualcomm announced it would acquire Nuvia, a server CPU startup founded in early 2019 by ex-Apple and ex-Google architects, for approximately $1.4 billion. The acquisition was completed in March 2021, and it was announced that its first products would be laptop CPUs, shipping in the second half of 2022.

In March 2022, Qualcomm acquired the advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous driving software brand Arriver from the investment company SSW Partners.

In June 2022, Qualcomm acquired Israeli startup Cellwize through its investment arm Qualcomm Ventures.

In August 2022, Bloomberg News reported that Qualcomm was planning to return to server CPU market based on Nuvia's product. Later that month, Arm Ltd. announced that it sued Qualcomm and Nuvia for breaching license agreements and trademark violations. Arm cited that the chip designs using Arm licenses developed by Nuvia could not be transferred to its parent Qualcomm without permission. Qualcomm indicated that its licenses with Arm cover custom-designed processors.

In January 2023, the company announced a new partnership with Salesforce to develop a connected vehicle platform for automakers using the Snapdragon digital chassis.

In May 2023, Qualcomm announced its intent to purchase Israeli fabless chipmaking company Autotalks for a reported $350–400 million. The purchase is subject to review by the Competition and Markets Authority. In March 2024, it was announced by the Federal Trade Commission that Qualcomm's proposed acquisition of Autotalks has been terminated.

In September 2023, the company announced that it had signed a contract rumored to be worth $75 million per year for its Snapdragon brand to be the primary shirt sponsor for English football club Manchester United starting with the 2024–25 season, replacing German company TeamViewer.

In October 2023, Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon X series, a computing platform for Windows PCs which includes a custom ARM-based Oryon CPU (from Nuvia acquisition), a GPU, and a dedicated neural processing unit.

In October 2024, Qualcomm announced that the Qualcomm-Microsoft exclusive protocol will be expired on December 25, 2024, allows Windows on ARM devices can adapt ARM CPUs other than Qualcomm Snapdragon.

In October 2024, Arm Ltd. said it would cancel Qualcomm's chip design license in an escalation of the dispute over the acquisition of Nuvia. In December 2024, a U.S. federal jury ruled partially in Qualcomm's favor, finding that its designs were properly licensed under an agreement with Arm. However, the jury was deadlocked on one of three issues raised, resulting in a mistrial on that specific point. In February 2025, Arm withdrew its efforts to terminate Qualcomm's chip-licensing agreement.

2025–present: Further acquisitions

In April 2025, Qualcomm acquired Movian AI, the generative AI unit of Vietnamese research company VinAI.

Qualcomm acquired Autotalks through its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc on the 5th of June 2025 for an undisclosed amount. Autotalks is an Israeli fabless semiconductor company founded in 2008, specializing in vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications.

Qualcomm agreed to acquire British semiconductor maker of high-speed wired connectivity, Alphawave IP Group, for $2.4 billion in June 2025, with the intention to expand into data centre and AI infrastructure markets.

Qualcomm acquired Arduino in October 2025, an Italian company specialising in single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for an undisclosed amount. At the same time, Arduino announced the Uno Q, which uses the Qualcomm QRB2210 system on a chip, intended for AI and graphical workloads.

In December 2025, it was announced that Qualcomm had acquired Ventana Micro Systems, a company specialising in CPU designs based on the open RISC-V instruction set architecture. The acquisition is intended to enhance Qualcomm's CPU engineering capabilities and complement its existing development of custom Oryon processors. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In March 2026, Qualcomm launched a new chip for new devices using Android. This is to support the growing interest from tech companies with new gadget concepts. That same year, Qualcomm acquired Modular for $3.9 billion.

Early history

In mid-1985, Qualcomm was hired by Hughes Aircraft to provide research and testing for a satellite network proposal to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The following year, Qualcomm filed its first CDMA patent (No. 4,901,307). This patent established Qualcomm's overall approach to CDMA and later became one of the most frequently cited technical documents in history. The project with the FCC was scrapped in 1988, when the FCC told all twelve vendors that submitted proposals to form a joint venture to create a single proposal.

Qualcomm further developed the CDMA techniques for commercial use and submitted them to the Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA) in 1989 as an alternative to the time-division multiple access (TDMA) standard for second-generation cell-phone networks. A few months later, CTIA officially rejected Qualcomm's CDMA standard in favor of the more established TDMA standard developed by Ericsson.

At the time, CDMA wasn't considered viable in high-volume commercial applications due to the near-far field effect, whereby phones closer to a cell tower with a stronger signal drown out callers that are further away and have a weaker signal. Qualcomm filed three additional patents in 1989. They were for: a power management system that adjusts the signal strength of each call to adjust for the near-far field effect; a "soft handoff" methodology for transferring callers from one cell-tower to the next; and a variable rate encoder, which reduces bandwidth usage when a caller isn't speaking.

In 2001, Qualcomm introduced Brew, a smartphone app development service with APIs to access contacts, billing, app-stores, or multimedia on the phone. South Korean carrier KTFreeTel was the first to adopt the Brew system in November 2001, followed by Verizon in March 2002 for its "Get it Now" program. There were 2.5 million Brew users by the end of 2002 and 73 million in 2003.

Other technology

In 2004, Qualcomm created a MediaFLO subsidiary to bring its FLO (forward link only) specification to market. Qualcomm built an $800 million MediaFLO network of cell towers to supplement carrier networks with one that is designed for multimedia. In comparison to cellular towers that provide two-way communications with each cell phone individually, MediaFLO towers would broadcast multimedia content to mobile phones in a one-way broadcast. Qualcomm also sold FLO-based semiconductors and licenses.

Qualcomm created the FLO Forum standards group with 15 industry participants in July 2005. Verizon was the first carrier to partner with MediaFlo in December 2005 for its Verizon Wireless' V Cast TV, which was followed by the AT&T Mobile TV service a couple months later. The MediaFlo service was launched on Super Bowl Sunday in 2007. Despite the interest the service got among carriers, it was unpopular among consumers. The service required users to pay for a subscription and have phones that were equipped with special semiconductors. The service was discontinued in 2011 and its spectrum was sold to AT&T for $1.93 billion. Qualcomm rebooted the effort in 2013 with LTE Broadcast, which uses pre-existing cell towers to broadcast select content locally on a dedicated spectrum, such as during major sporting events.

Based on technology acquired from Iridigm in 2004 for $170 million, Qualcomm began commercializing Mirasol displays in 2007, which was expanded into eight products in 2008. Mirasol uses natural light shining on a screen to provide lighting for the display, rather a backlight, in order to reduce power consumption. The amount of space between the surface of the display and a mirror within a 10 micron-wide "interferometric modulator" determines the color of the reflected light. Mirasol was eventually closed down after an attempt to revive it in 2013 in Toq watches.

In June 2011, Qualcomm introduced AllJoyn, a wireless standard for communicating between devices like cell phones, televisions, air-conditioners, and refrigerators. The Alljoyn technology was donated to the Linux Foundation in December 2013. Qualcomm and the Linux Foundation then formed the Allseen Alliance to administer the standard and Qualcomm developed products that used the AllJoyn standard In December 2011, Qualcomm formed a healthcare subsidiary called Qualcomm Life. Simultaneously, the subsidiary released a cloud-based service for managing clinical data called 2net and the Qualcomm Life Fund, which invests in wireless healthcare technology companies. The subsidiary doubled its employee-count by acquiring HealthyCircles Inc., a healthcare IT company, the following May. Qualcomm life was later sold to a private equity firm, Francisco Partners, in 2019.

Developments since 2016

In 2016, Qualcomm developed its first beta processor chip for servers and PCs called "Server Development Platform" and sent samples for testing. In January 2017, a second generation data center and PC server chip called Centriq 2400 was released. PC Magazine said the release was "historic" for Qualcomm, because it was a new market segment for the company. Qualcomm also created a Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies subsidiary to focus on the PCs and servers market. In 2017, Qualcomm introduced embedded technology for 3D cameras intended for augmented reality apps, and also developed and demonstrated laptop processors.

In 2000, Qualcomm formed a joint venture with Ford called Wingcast, which created telematics equipment for cars, but was unsuccessful and closed down two years later. Qualcomm acquired the wireless electric car charging company, HaloIPT, in November 2011 and later sold the company to WiTricity in February 2019. Qualcomm also started introducing Snapdragon system-on-chips and Gobi modems and other software or semiconductor products for self-driving cars and modern in-car computers.

In 2020, Qualcomm hired Baidu veteran, Nan Zhou, to head Qualcomm's push into AI.

In 2024, Qualcomm identified generative artificial intelligence as a key driver of market demand for its edge computing technology, with the company projecting a total addressable market of approximately $900 billion by 2030. In August 2024, Reuters reported that Qualcomm was among the clients of Contextual AI, a company building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) agents for enterprise use.

In September 2025, Qualcomm and BMW jointly developed an autonomous driving system that will debut on the BMW iX3. This is part of Qualcomm's diversification into new business areas outside of smartphone chips, with automotive among its fastest-growing divisions.

In October 2025, Qualcomm announced it was launching new AI accelerator chips meant to challenge NVIDIA's dominant position in the space. The company said its first customer for its AI200 chips will be Humain—an AI company backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which is set to deploy 200 megawatts worth of Qualcomm's chips in 2026.

Operations and market-share

Qualcomm develops software, semiconductor designs, patented intellectual property, development tools and services, but does not manufacture physical products like phones or infrastructure equipment. The company's revenues are derived from licensing fees for use of its intellectual property, sales of semiconductor products that are based on its designs, and from other wireless hardware, software or services.

Qualcomm divides its business into three categories:

QCT (Qualcomm CDMA Technologies): CDMA wireless products; 80% of revenue

QTL (Qualcomm Technology Licensing): Licensing; 19% of revenue

QSI (Qualcomm strategic initiatives): Investing in other tech companies; less than 1% of revenue

Qualcomm is a predominantly fabless provider of semiconductor products for wireless communications and data transfer in portable devices. According to the analyst firm Strategy Analytics, Qualcomm has a 39 percent market-share for smartphone application processors and a 50 percent market-share of baseband processors. Its share of the market for application processors on tablets is 18 percent. According to analyst firm ABI Research, Qualcomm has a 65 percent market-share in LTE baseband. Qualcomm also provides licenses to use its patents, many of which are critical to the CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA and WCDMA wireless standards. The company is estimated to earn $20 for every smartphone sold.

Qualcomm is the largest public company in San Diego. It has a philanthropic arm called The Qualcomm Foundation. A January 2013 lawsuit resulted in Qualcomm voluntarily adopting a policy of disclosing its political contributions. According to The New York Times, Qualcomm's new disclosure policy was praised by transparency advocates.

Nokia and Project Stockholm

Six large telecommunications companies led by Nokia filed a complaint against Qualcomm with the European Commission's antitrust division in October 2005. They alleged Qualcomm was abusing its market position to charge unreasonable rates for its patents. Qualcomm alleged the six companies were colluding together under the code name Project Stockholm in a legal strategy to negotiate lower rates. These events led to a protracted legal dispute.

Qualcomm filed a series of patent-infringement lawsuits against Nokia in Europe, Asia, the US, and with the ITC. The parties initiated more than one dozen lawsuits against one another. Several companies filed antitrust complaints against Qualcomm with the Korean Fair Trade Commission, who initiated an investigation into Qualcomm's practices in December 2006. The dispute between Qualcomm and Nokia escalated, when their licensing agreement ended in April 2007.

In February 2008, the two parties agreed to halt any new litigation until an initial ruling is made on the first lawsuit in Delaware. Nokia won three consecutive court rulings with the German Federal Patent Court, the High Court in the United Kingdom, and the International Trade Commission respectively. Each found that Nokia was not infringing on Qualcomm's patents. In July 2008, Nokia and Qualcomm reached an out-of-court settlement that ended the dispute and created a 15-year cross-licensing agreement.

Recent disputes

ParkerVision filed a lawsuit against Qualcomm in July 2011 alleging that it infringed on seven ParkerVision patents related to converting electromagnetic radio signals to lower frequencies. A $173 million jury verdict against Qualcomm was overturned by a judge.

In November 2013, the China National Development and Reform Commission initiated an anti-trust investigation into Qualcomm's licensing division. The Securities and Exchange Commission also started an investigation into whether Qualcomm breached antibribery laws through its activities in China. The Chinese regulator raided Qualcomm's Chinese offices in August 2013. The dispute was settled in 2015 for $975 million.

In late 2016 The Korea Fair Trade Commission alleged Qualcomm abused a "dominant market position" to charge cell phone manufacturers excessive royalties for patents and limit sales to companies selling competing semiconductor products. The regulator gave Qualcomm a fine of $854 million, which the company said it will appeal. Eventually, Qualcomm lost the case in Supreme Court of the Republic of Korea in 2023, causing to enact the fine in force.

In April 2017, Qualcomm paid an $814.9 million settlement to BlackBerry as a refund for prepaid licensing fees.

In October 2017, Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission fined Qualcomm another $773 million. In late 2018 Qualcomm paid a settlement to Taiwan for $93 million in fines and a promise to spend $700 million in the local Taiwan economy.

In October 2025, as part of an anti-trust investigation into Qualcomm, China's market regulator said that the company said it did not notify the agency when it acquired Israeli auto-chip design company Autotalks despite having been informed that the deal required the agency's approval and telling it that the company would not pursue the merger. Several media outlets including CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Barrons, and more speculated that the investigation was part of trade discussions between the US and China.

Apple

In January 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) initiated an investigation into allegations that Qualcomm charged excessive royalties for patents that are "essential to industry standards". That same year, Apple initiated a $1 billion lawsuit against Qualcomm in the U.S. alleging Qualcomm overcharged for semiconductors and failed to pay $1 billion in rebates. Apple also filed lawsuits in China and the United Kingdom.

Apple alleged Qualcomm was engaging in unfair competition by selling industry-standard patents at a discount rate in exchange for an exclusivity agreement for its semiconductor products. An FTC report reached similar conclusions. Qualcomm filed counter-claims alleging Apple made false and misleading statements to induce regulators to sue Qualcomm. Qualcomm also sued Apple's suppliers for allegedly not paying Qualcomm's patent royalties, after Apple stopped reimbursing it for patent fees. Qualcomm petitioned the International Trade Commission to prohibit imports of iPhones, on the premise that they contain stolen Qualcomm patents after Apple's suppliers stopped paying.

In August 2017, the International Trade Commission responded to Qualcomm's complaints by starting an investigation of Apple's use of Qualcomm patents without royalties. Qualcomm also filed suit against Apple in China for alleged patent infringement in October 2017. The following month, Apple counter-sued, alleging Qualcomm was using patented Apple technology in its Android components.

In December 2018, Chinese and German courts held that Apple infringed on Qualcomm patents and banned sales of certain iPhones. Some patents were held to be invalid, while others were infringed by Apple.

In April 2019, Apple and Qualcomm reached an agreement to cease all litigation and sign a six-year licensing agreement. The settlement included a one-time payment from Apple of about $4.5 to 4.7 billion. Terms of the six-year licensing agreement were not disclosed, but the licensing fees were expected to increase revenues by $2 per-share.

In January 2018, the European Competition Commission fined Qualcomm $1.2 billion for an arrangement to use Qualcomm chips exclusively in Apple's mobile products. Qualcomm appealed the decision, and in June 2022, Qualcomm announced the company had won its appeal of the European Union antitrust fine. The appeal had highlighted that Apple as a company had no technical alternative other than to use Qualcomm's LTE chipsets.

Federal Trade Commission

Stemming from the investigation that led to the Apple lawsuit actions, the FTC filed suit against Qualcomm in 2017 alleging it engaged in antitrust behavior due to its monopoly on wireless broadband technology. The complaints filed by the FTC included that Qualcomm charged "disproportionately high" patent royalty rates to phone manufacturers and refused to sell them broadband chips if they did not license the patents, a policy referred to as "no license, no chips", that Qualcomm refused to license the patent to other chip manufacturers as to maintain its monopoly, and that Qualcomm purposely offered Apple a lower license cost to use its chips exclusively, locking other competitors as well as wireless service providers out of Apple's lucrative market. The trial starting in January 2019, heard by Judge Lucy Koh of the federal Northern District Court that also oversaw the Apple case. Judge Koh ruled in May 2019 against Qualcomm, asserting that Qualcomm's practices did violate antitrust. As part of the ruling, Qualcomm was forced to stop its "no license, no chips" bundling with phone manufacturers, and was required to license its patents to other chip manufacturers. As Qualcomm had expressed its intent to appeal, a panel of judges on the 9th circuit of appeals stayed the orders pending the litigation action.

Qualcomm appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which reversed the decision in August 2020. The Ninth Circuit determined that Judge Koh's decision strayed beyond the scope of antitrust law and that whether Qualcomm's patent licensing may be considered reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing does not fall within the scope of antitrust law, but rather is a matter of contract and patent law. The court concluded that the FTC failed to meet its burden of proof and that Qualcomm's business practices were better characterized as "hypercompetitive" rather than "anticompetitive".