Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) held its 2026 annual meeting of stockholders on Thursday, with Chair Mark McLaughlin opening the session by introducing board nominees and members of the executive team, including President and CEO Cristiano Amon and CFO/COO Akash Palkhiwala. McLaughlin also recognized two departing directors: Neil Smit, who is retiring after nearly eight years on the board, and Chris Young, who is leaving to focus on his role as CEO of Vertex Incorporated.
Governance items and voting outcomes
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Ann Chaplin reviewed procedural matters, including confirmation that a quorum was present and that Peter Descovich had been appointed inspector of election. Stockholders considered seven proposals, and management reported preliminary results showing all board-recommended items were approved while the two stockholder proposals were not.
- Director elections: Stockholders elected all 11 director nominees: Sylvia Acevedo, Cristiano Amon, Mark Fields, Jeff Henderson, Zico Kolter, Ann Livermore, Mark McLaughlin, Jamie Miller, Marie Myers, Irene Rosenfeld, and Jean-Pascal Tricoire.
- Auditor ratification: Stockholders ratified PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent public accountants for the fiscal year ending September 27, 2026.
- Executive compensation: Stockholders approved the non-binding advisory “say-on-pay” proposal.
- Say-on-pay frequency: Stockholders supported holding future say-on-pay votes on an annual basis.
- Equity plan: Stockholders approved the amended and restated 2023 long-term incentive plan, including an increase in share reserves by 24 million shares.
- Stockholder proposals: Both stockholder proposals were not approved.
Stockholder proposals focused on special meetings and China risk
In Proposal Six, stockholder proponent John Chevedden asked the company to amend governing documents to allow holders of a combined 10% of outstanding common stock to call a special stockholder meeting. Chevedden argued Qualcomm’s existing provisions—citing a threshold “up to 25%” and a requirement that shares be held for a “full continuous year” to participate—functioned as “poison pills” that effectively prevent stockholders from calling special meetings.
Proposal Seven was presented via a prerecorded statement by Todd Russ, Chairman of the Board of Investors for the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust. Russ requested reporting on how the company manages “China risk,” describing China as a “massive portion of revenue” and referencing concerns raised in meetings with the company about a lack of tracking for China-specific operating costs, assets, or supply chain specifics. Russ characterized the proposal as “modest, reasonable, and non-political,” and said it sought transparency rather than a decoupling from China.
CEO outlines strategy: diversification, AI, and expansion to new markets
In a business update, Amon said Qualcomm’s strategy is built on anticipating change, investing early in new technologies, and executing with discipline. He described the company as a “connected computing leader” with capabilities spanning high-performance, low-power computing, advanced connectivity, and AI processing. Amon said Qualcomm’s technologies scale from “less than 2 milliwatts” in consumer electronics to “2,000 watts” in next-generation data centers.
Amon said the company is “successfully expanding beyond handsets” into personal AI and wearables, PCs, automotive, edge networking, and industrial IoT, and is “extending this approach into advanced robotics and the data center.”
Product and market highlights: Snapdragon, automotive, networking, robotics, and data center
In handsets, Amon said Snapdragon platforms “continue to set the pace of mobile innovation,” highlighting the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 as featuring “the fastest mobile CPU ever,” along with enhanced NPU and GPU capabilities. He said the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 support premium smartphones and are seeing “strong global adoption across OEM flagship designs.”
He also emphasized “personal AI” devices such as smart glasses and other wearables, describing “agentic experiences” and continuous sensing requirements as aligned with Qualcomm’s strengths in performance and power efficiency. Amon said the company is working with “seven of the nine largest cloud companies globally,” and that Snapdragon is the platform of choice with “more than 40 devices in production or development,” with smart glasses likely to become the largest category.
In PCs, Amon pointed to Snapdragon X Series momentum and said Qualcomm expects “approximately 150 Snapdragon-powered laptop designs to be commercialized through 2026.” In automotive, he said Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions have broad adoption across major OEMs and that the company’s digital cockpit platform is deployed in “75 million cars globally,” including top-selling vehicles from General Motors, Toyota, and Mercedes. He also cited the launch of Snapdragon Ride Pilot, described as Qualcomm’s first full L2+ automated driving solution in its advanced self-driving software stack co-developed with BMW.
In edge networking, Amon cited demand for Wi-Fi 7 gateway platforms and adoption of 5G fixed wireless access solutions, and said Qualcomm is investing in Wi-Fi 8, with consumer devices expected “as early as summer 2026.” He highlighted Xiaomi’s launch of an AI gateway based on the Qualcomm Dragonwing and Pro A7 platform. In industrial and embedded IoT, he said Qualcomm expanded its offerings and cited a range of customer examples using industrial-grade Dragonwing platforms.
Amon also said the company formally announced entry into advanced robotics, describing Dragonwing IQ 10 series support spanning “advanced AMRs to humanoids.” He said robotics underscores the importance of on-device AI processing, low latency sensor fusion, and power efficiency.
In the data center, Amon said Qualcomm is focusing on NPU-based AI inference accelerator cards and servers and custom SoCs, emphasizing inference workloads and an “innovative memory architecture” that provides “more than ten times higher effective memory bandwidth” with lower power consumption. He also said the company completed the acquisition of Alphawave Semi and is “encouraged by early customer traction” with hyperscalers, cloud service providers, and sovereign AI projects.
Q&A: diversification targets, capital returns, and 6G
During the Q&A, Amon reiterated Qualcomm’s target of $22 billion of combined QCT, automotive, and IoT revenues by fiscal 2029. On data center, he said it is “not included” in that $22 billion and that Qualcomm expects the business to start becoming “financially material in fiscal 2027,” calling it a “multi-billion opportunity.”
On capital returns, management said Qualcomm returned approximately “100% of our free cash flow” in fiscal 2025 and is “on track to do that in fiscal 2026,” using a combination of dividends and buybacks. The company also said it announced a $0.03 dividend increase, and reiterated guidance that annual dividend increases are expected to be in the “low single-digit range.”
Addressing 6G, Amon said “6G is definitely coming” and that Qualcomm expects to lead it as it has prior wireless generations. He described 6G as enabling significant uplink speed increases for future AI-driven devices and said the network itself will become “an AI network,” including sensing capabilities and “the abilities to create a digital twin of everything,” which he framed as an opportunity spanning cellular technologies as well as AI compute and data center.
In closing remarks, Amon said Qualcomm is evolving from a company focused on connectivity and mobile into “a connected computing company for the age of intelligence,” and said the company will continue executing its strategy.
About Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)
Qualcomm Incorporated is a global semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in San Diego, California. Founded in 1985, the company is known for its development of wireless technologies and for playing a central role in the evolution of digital cellular standards, including CDMA and subsequent generations of mobile standards. Qualcomm’s business combines the design and sale of semiconductor products with a patent licensing program for wireless technologies and related intellectual property.
The company’s product portfolio includes system-on-chip (SoC) platforms marketed under the Snapdragon brand, cellular modem and RF front-end components, connectivity solutions for Wi‑Fi and Bluetooth, and processors and platforms aimed at automotive, IoT, networking and edge-computing applications.
