Qualcomm – Company Overview, History, Products

Qualcomm is an American multinational company that specializes in semiconductor and chip manufacturing and services related to wireless technologies. The company is headquartered in San Diego, California.

It manufactures various mobile chip processors and wireless communication technologies for mobile phones like the 5G, 4G, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, and WCDMA mobile communications standards.

History of Qualcomm

Initially, when Qualcomm was founded by Irwin Jacobs and the other six co-founders in 1985 it was then named “QUALity COMMunications” and it was started as contract research and development center which majorly focused on projects related to the government and defense.

After its merger with Omninet in the year 1988 and a fundraiser of over $3.5 million helped the company to get into the production of Omnitraces satellite communication system. Later, through the profit of the business, the company started funding code-division multiple access (CDMA) wireless communication technologies for research development and design. As the time began and new technologies and cell phones came to rise, Qualcomm developed a more advanced set of satellite phones and 2G devices also.

Since 2000, Qualcomm has spread the majority of its interest in chip manufacturing and software for smartphones and other devices. Qualcomm has also enhanced its roots in the development of semiconductor devices to be used in vehicles, watches, laptops, wi-fi, smartphones, and other devices.

Qualcomm Snapdragon

Qualcomm Snapdragon is allegedly the largest source of revenue for Qualcomm. Snapdragon has totally changed the game for Qualcomm and now it’s giving a tough fight to the Apple series of Bionic chips in the iPhones. Qualcomm has developed its own AI systems and gaming software for multitasking in smartphones.

Qualcomm 5G

Qualcomm has developed the latest 5G band modules for phones and laptops so that they have long-lasting cellular connectivity and high-performance data transfer speeds. Now all the latest devices are coming on 5G, and they are using Qualcomm-based patents and software for providing 5G connectivity.

Qualcomm Snapdragon XR

Qualcomm Snapdragon XR is a new set of technology development software by Qualcomm to provide an immersive experience to the users in the metaverse using their smartphone devices that connect their virtual world with their mobiles via XR – Extended Reality, VR- Virtual Reality, and AR- Augmented Reality.

Qualcomm Revenue

Since the time when Qualcomm collaborated with Omninet in 1988, it recorded a rise in its employee count that was eight in 1986 and rose to 620 in 1991. Alongside, it generated the revenue of $32 million by 1989, and half of it came from a contract with Omnitracs Schneider National.

Qualcomm began trading for IPO in the year 1991. Then it increased its business model to now produce chipsets and processors for devices.

Qualcomm acquired NUVIA for $1.4 billion dollars in 2021. NUVIA is also a chip manufacturing company. The company generated a revenue of over $33.57 billion in the fiscal year of 2021. The revenue included the selling of various semiconductor devices, wireless communication patents, and other chipsets in mobile devices.