As the mobile Internet has become more commonplace, Qualcomm - which is by far the largest fabless semiconductor company in the world - has started to develop a much broader profile.
While most people have traditionally been indifferent about the processors inside their phones, as we expect them to function more like mini-computers, suddenly processing grunt has become more important. Qualcomm anticipated this by developing its own top-end SoC and giving it an easy to remember name: Snapdragon.
The exponential growth in both the mobile broadband markets and smartphones should spell good news for Qualcomm as Snapdragon is just a hobby compared to its main cash-cow: 3G chips and IP licensing. However, in recent weeks, its stock has consistently gone downwards.
It looks like this is as much down to how Qualcomm communicates with Wall Street as anything else. A month ago, it released a conservative assessment of future growth and investors reacted negatively. This seems to have led to a general reappraisal of Qualcomm's growth potential and every time an analyst downgrades their rating, its stock falls yet further.
On the whole, markets were pretty flat after a nice rally for the previous two weeks. Only Apple and Oracle managed gains worth noting, while Google and NVIDIA were among the bigger fallers.
Company | Listing | Share price 31/1/10 | Share price 7/2/10 | Share price 21/2/10 | Share price 28/2/10 | 7-day change | Market cap (bn) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AMD | AMD | 7.46 | 7.35 | 7.93 | 7.91 | -0.3% | 5.30 |
Apple | AAPL | 192.06 | 195.29 | 201.67 | 204.62 | 1.5% | 185.55 |
ARM | ARMH | 9.07 | 9.65 | 9.38 | 9.29 | -1% | 4.06 |
Avnet | AVT | 26.44 | 26.81 | 28.19 | 27.61 | -2.1% | 4.19 |
Cisco | CSCO | 22.47 | 23.70 | 24.36 | 24.33 | -0.1% | 139.96 |
Dell | DELL | 12.90 | 13.24 | 13.47 | 13.23 | -1.8% | 25.89 |
GOOG | 529.94 | 531.29 | 540.48 | 526.80 | -2.5% | 167.14 | |
HP | HPQ | 47.07 | 47.32 | 50.79 | 50.79 | 0.0% | 119.56 |
IBM | IBM | 122.39 | 123.52 | 127.19 | 127.16 | -0.0% | 166.58 |
Ingram Micro | IM | 16.90 | 17.14 | 18.01 | 17.70 | -1.7% | 2.90 |
Intel | INTC | 19.40 | 19.47 | 20.81 | 20.53 | -1.3% | 113.37 |
Microsoft | MSFT | 28.18 | 28.02 | 28.78 | 28.67 | -0.4% | 251.45 |
Nokia | NOK | 13.69 | 13.39 | 13.37 | 13.47 | 0.7% | 49.95 |
Nvidia | NVDA | 15.39 | 16.22 | 16.58 | 16.20 | -2.3% | 8.99 |
Oracle | ORCL | 23.06 | 23.55 | 24.32 | 24.65 | 1.4% | 123.53 |
Qualcomm | QCOM | 39.19 | 38.07 | 39.59 | 36.69 | -7.3% | 61.66 |
Tech Data | TECD | 40.75 | 40.26 | 43.16 | 42.84 | -0.7% | 2.18 |
Dow | .DJI | 10067.33 | 10012.23 | 10402.35 | 10325.26 | -0.7% | N/A |
FTSE 100 | .FTSE | 5188.52 | 5060.92 | 5358.17 | 5354.52 | -0.1% | N/A |
NASDAQ | .IXIC | 2147.35 | 2141.12 | 2243.87 | 2238.26 | -0.3% | N/A |