Qualcomm has surged to the forefront of the personal AI and wearable market through its collaboration with Meta on the Ray-Ban smart glasses. After initial skepticism regarding its AI strategy, the company saw demand for these smart glasses accelerate rapidly, prompting management to raise production targets to between 20 million and 30 million units over the next year. This robust demand underscores Qualcomm’s ability to monetize its Snapdragon X core and AI accelerator IP in consumer devices, reversing earlier concerns that it had missed the AI wave.

Building on its success in wearables, Qualcomm launched the Dragonwing IQ10 Series platform designed specifically for robotics and autonomous machines. Early partnerships, notably with Figure — a leading humanoid AI developer — have highlighted the platform’s low-latency inference and energy efficiency advantages. Management reports that more than a dozen robotics firms are in advanced evaluation, and Qualcomm forecasts that the robotics segment could contribute high-single-digit percentage points to annual revenue growth over the next three to five years.

While non-handset divisions like automotive and IoT continue to post double-digit revenue growth rates, the core handset modem and RF business is facing mounting challenges. A recent downgrade by a prominent Wall Street firm cited expected share losses in modem content for leading smartphone OEMs and softer global smartphone demand. Qualcomm’s share price declined by nearly 5% following the downgrade, and investors are watching the company’s February earnings report as a potential inflection point to assess whether strong segment diversification can offset ongoing headwinds in its legacy handset markets.