Qualcomm reports fiscal third-quarter results on Wednesday, July 29, after the US close. In April it guided the quarter twice:
| Q3 FY2026 guidance, given 29 April | Range | Midpoint |
|---|---|---|
| Revenues | $9.2B – $10.0B | $9.6B |
| GAAP diluted EPS | $1.26 – $1.46 | $1.36 |
| less share-based compensation | ($0.68) | |
| less other items | ($0.16) | |
| Non-GAAP diluted EPS | $2.10 – $2.30 | $2.20 |
Eighty-four cents, or 62% of the GAAP midpoint, separates the two numbers the company published for the same three months. The published consensus for Wednesday is $1.54 — which is inside neither range, because it is measured on a third basis again.
This is not a Qualcomm quirk this quarter; it is what Qualcomm's income statement looks like. Share-based compensation alone is guided at 68 cents a share, and the "other items" line carries acquisition amortization and a tax adjustment. Whichever number Wednesday's headline uses, the other two will also be true, and the beat or miss will be computed against whichever the writer happened to have.
The rule for reading the print: compare like to like. $2.10–2.30 is the range that grades the operating business as management framed it. $1.26–1.46 is the range that grades what actually flowed to the bottom line under GAAP. And the $1.54 consensus grades neither — it belongs beside the estimate feed's own reported figure, not beside either of Qualcomm's.
The falsifiable claim
Guidance ranges are soft. One sentence in the April release is not:
We now estimate that QCT handset revenues from Chinese customers will reach a bottom in the third quarter and return to sequential growth in the following quarter.
That is a dated, checkable forecast about the largest line in the company. It matters because of the shape of the last two quarters:
| QCT revenue stream | Q2 FY25 | Q2 FY26 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Handsets | $6,929M | $6,024M | −13% |
| Automotive | $959M | $1,326M | +38% |
| IoT | $1,581M | $1,726M | +9% |
| Total QCT | $9,469M | $9,076M | −4% |
Handsets fell $905 million year over year in the March quarter while automotive and IoT together added $512 million. The diversification is real and it is not yet large enough to cover the hole. If the April claim is right, Wednesday is the trough — and the September quarter, guided on Wednesday, is where it turns.
Two things that will distort the comparisons
The March quarter's GAAP EPS was $6.88, and it means nothing for the run rate. Qualcomm released a valuation allowance established in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, producing a $5.7 billion income tax benefit worth $5.33 per share. Non-GAAP EPS for the same quarter was $2.65. Any sequential GAAP comparison Wednesday will show a catastrophic decline that is entirely the absence of a one-off tax entry.
Revenue guidance is a decline in both directions. The $9.6 billion midpoint is below the $10.60 billion just reported and below the $10.37 billion of the year-ago quarter. Qualcomm guided this quarter down, said so, and attributed it to memory supply constraints and pricing feeding through to handset OEM demand.
What to watch on July 29
- Where revenue lands in $9.2–10.0B. The range is 8% wide, and every point in it is a decline against the $10.37 billion of a year earlier — 4% at the top, 11% at the bottom. Management's characterisation of where it landed matters as much as the number.
- Handset revenue, and whether management repeats the bottom call. $6,024 million last quarter and $6,328 million a year ago. A print below $5.5 billion with the bottom call withdrawn is a different company from one that confirms it.
- QCT EBT margin against 27%. It was 30% a year earlier. Margin, not revenue, is where memory-cost inflation shows up first.
- The September-quarter guide, especially the non-GAAP EPS range. This is the first quarter of the claimed sequential recovery in Chinese handsets, so the guide either backs the April statement or quietly retires it.
- Anything on the data-center engagement. In April the company said a leading hyperscaler custom-silicon engagement was on track for initial shipments later in the calendar year, and it held an Investor Day on June 24 to expand on growth initiatives. Wednesday is the first quarterly release after that event.
The fiscal third-quarter guidance ranges, the fiscal second-quarter results, the QCT revenue-stream table, the $5.7 billion valuation-allowance release worth $5.33 per share, the memory-constraint commentary and the quoted forecast on Chinese handset revenue are all as Qualcomm published them in its second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings release of April 29, 2026. The 84-cent gap, the guidance midpoints and the growth rates against them are our arithmetic on those disclosed figures. The $1.54 EPS consensus is press-reported from a third-party estimate feed; this site stores no consensus series for Qualcomm and does not verify it, and that feed reports Qualcomm's results on its own adjusted basis, which matches neither the GAAP diluted EPS this site stores nor Qualcomm's own non-GAAP measure. No revenue consensus is published for this ticker. No price, valuation or rating figure appears above. These are expectations, not results.
