NEW YORK, June 25, 2026, 13:03 EDT
- QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) jumped 7.6% to $212.34 after hitting a session high of $224.00.
- The move boosted equity value by roughly $16 billion, almost matching the company’s new goal for fiscal 2029 data-center revenue of over $15 billion.
- The stock outpaced chip and Nasdaq proxies, but surrendered much of its earlier jump.
QUALCOMM Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) jumped $14.93 to $212.34, after reaching a session high of $224.00. Shares were up 7.6% from Wednesday’s close and touched a 13.5% gain earlier. Latest market cap printed at $227.6 billion, with trading volume near 22.5 million shares.
Qualcomm’s move was clear in the numbers. The rally tacked on roughly $16.0 billion in market value at the latest price. That’s 1.1 times the over $15 billion in yearly data-center revenue the company aims at for fiscal 2029. At its peak, the gain topped $28.5 billion—1.9 times that same target.
The stock is getting swept up in the AI trade even though the data-center business doesn’t yet have the revenue to back a big shift. The market is pricing in where it thinks things can go, but the retreat from the peak shows investors aren’t convinced it’s there yet.
Qualcomm raised its non-handset revenue goal for fiscal 2029 to $40 billion, nearly double what it had set before. The chipmaker sees data-center revenue topping $15 billion for that year, with automotive at $10 billion and IoT above $14 billion. Qualcomm said handsets are expected to be only about a third of QCT revenue by 2029.
Qualcomm CFO Akash Palkhiwala told investors the data center unit is expected to generate $5 billion in fiscal 2027, with $1 billion of that coming from new custom-chip clients. “We will be truly diversified,” he said. Reuters
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) picked Qualcomm’s High Bandwidth Compute chips for AI, Reuters said. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is using the Dragonfly C1000 CPU. Qualcomm data-center head Tony Pialis told Reuters that two more large hyperscale customers signed up for custom chips, with revenue from them coming before year-end. “I have not had to push my way into hyperscale customers; they’ve been pulling us in,” Pialis said. Reuters
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is “quickly building the infrastructure” needed for its AI push. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon called the Meta CPU partnership “just the beginning.” Qualcomm plans to produce its first Dragonfly C1000 CPU for Meta in the second half of 2028. Business Wire
Amon talked about power and cost, not only demand for AI. “Agentic AI is driving a significant increase in demand for AI inference in the data center,” he said. He also said infrastructure “has to deliver much higher performance at lower power and cost.” Qualcomm
Qualcomm was moving even as the chip rally grew broader. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX) traded up 3.5%. Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) added 0.6%, but SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) edged down.
Some analysts acted quickly on Qualcomm, but the calls split. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) bumped shares up to neutral and set a new $231 target, up from $146, according to Investopedia. UBS Group (NYSE:UBS) raised its price goal to $235 from $170, holding the neutral rating. Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) maintained underperform but still upped its target to $220 from $195, calling “meaningful data center success” priced in. Investopedia
Investors are watching the two custom-chip programs in the near term. They’re ahead of the Meta CPU ramp and have the first revenue date management told investors.
