Qualcomm’s revenue for the third quarter of 2025 surpassed $10.4 billion overall, beating estimates as the company’s Automotive and IoT segments each delivered year-over-year revenue growth of greater than 20%.
Those segments are key to Qualcomm’s ongoing diversification strategy, but the company’s core Handsets segment did well, too. Handsets revenue grew 7% year over year to $6.32 billion, while Automotive was up 21% over the same period to $984 million and IoT surged 24% since the third quarter of last year to $1.68 billion. These growth rates keep Automotive and IoT on track to represent 50% of Qualcomm’s overall revenue by 2030, a goal the company discussed at its Investor Day event in November 2024.
Driving a lot of the IoT excitement is the potential to add edge AI capabilities to expanding IoT deployments. Moves such as its acquisition of Edge Impulse last March have put it in a strong position to be an enabler of “AI at scale at the edge,” as Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon put it in a video commentary released with the earnings report. Meanwhile, in Automotive, ongoing work with BMW has resulted in a jointly developed Driving Stack, as well as Qualcomm’s ADAS stack and Snapdragon Ride platforms being included in BMW’s awaited Neue Klasse line of vehicles.
Qualcomm also is starting to show evidence of how it is breaking free from reliance on smartphone modem-related revenue from major customer Apple. Qualcomm touted Meta as a growing customer for its chips, and Amon said during Qualcomm’s earnings call, “We’re forecasting fiscal 2025 to be the second consecutive year of greater than 15% year-over-year growth in total QCT non-Apple revenues.”
That statement comes after years of assumptions that Apple’s own modem developments would eventually cause a revenue crisis for Qualcomm. Although, back in 2023, Qualcomm acknowledged it would still be supplying Apple with modems through at least 2026.
Qualcomm issued an outlook for the fourth quarter of 2025 that included the expectation that overall revenue will reach $10.7 billion. The company also expects to have its first $1 billion revenue quarter in its Automotive segment.