Last time we had done a detailed SWOT Analysis of Nvidia, an American multinational technology company. In this, we will be doing a detailed SWOT analysis of Qualcomm, an American multinational corporation.
The world’s leading wireless technology innovator is Qualcomm. It is an American multinational corporation that creates software, semiconductors and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents that are essential to 4G and 5G CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA and WCDMA mobile communications standards.
Marketing is another aspect of Qualcomm’s growth. As we all know after Covid-19 the world is going online. Hence, marketing strategy is also changing. The new form of marketing is a digital marketing and if you are interested in learning skills of digital marketing then check our Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing 1O1 by Karan Shah, the CEO and Founder of IIDE.
In this blog, we will do an extensive SWOT analysis of Qualcomm and find out the company’s overall performance. We will also be talking about products of Qualcomm as well as Qualcomm’s close competitors. Before we begin with our analysis let’s learn more about Qualcomm, the company’s overview, its founding, products and competitors.
About Qualcomm
Qualcomm is an American multinational corporation. In 1985, Qualcomm was established by seven former Linkabit colleagues which were led by Irwin Jacobs. Qualcomm stands for “QUALity COMMunications”. Snapdragon processors and chips are one of Qualcomm’s most popular products. These processors are offered to smartphone manufacturers by the company.
For many years, Qualcomm has expanded its operations into selling semiconductor products. It also develops semiconductor components and software for vehicles, watches, laptops and other devices.
Qualcomm is an overwhelmingly fabless supplier of semiconductor items for remote correspondences and information move in compact gadgets. As indicated by the expert firm Strategy Analytics, Qualcomm has a 39 per cent piece of the pie for cell phone application processors and a 50 per cent portion of the overall industry of baseband processors. Its portion of the market for application processors on tablets is 18 per cent.
According to investigator firm ABI Research, Qualcomm has a 65 per cent piece of the pie in LTE baseband. Qualcomm additionally gives licenses to utilize its licenses, a considerable lot of which are basic to the CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA and WCDMA remote standards. The organization is assessed to procure $20 for each cell phone sold.
| Founder | Irwin Jacobs, Andrew Viterbi |
|---|---|
| Year Founded | 1985 |
| Origin | San Diego, California, U.S. |
| No. of Employees | 41,000+ |
| Company Type | Public |
| Market Cap | $187.98 Billion (2022) |
| Annual Revenue | $33.57 Billion (2021) |
| Net Income/ Profit | $5.20 Billion (2020) |
Products of Qualcomm
Following are the products of Qualcomm:
- Snapdragon
- CDMA/ WCDMA chipsets
- BREW
- QChat
- CPU
Competitors of Qualcomm
The top 5 competitors of Qualcomm are:
- Broadcom
- MediaTek
- Intel
- Motorola Solutions, Inc
- HiSilicon
As now we have a better understanding of Qualcomm, let’s look into the SWOT Analysis of Qualcomm.
SWOT Analysis of Qualcomm
A SWOT analysis identifies a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A proven and true management paradigm that allows Qualcomm to compare its business and performance with competitors and the industry as a whole.
So let us go ahead and first have a glance at the strengths of Qualcomm from the SWOT analysis of Qualcomm.
Strengths of Qualcomm
There are the factors that contribute to the success of the company are their strengths. Strengths are those characteristics where we get to know that the company is performing well. Following are the strengths of Qualcomm:
- Strong Free Cash Flow: There is a strong free cash flow that puts resources into the hands of the company to expand into new projects.
- Good ROI: It is relatively successful in new projects and provides a high return on capital expenditures through the creation of new revenue streams.
- Strong Brand Portfolio: Over the years Qualcomm has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. This brand portfolio can be very useful if an organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- Outstanding Performance in New Markets: Qualcomm has accumulated experience to enter new markets and achieve success. The expansion has helped organizations create new revenue streams and diversify business cycle risks in the markets in which they operate.
- Highly Skilled Labor: Highly skilled workforce through successful education and training programs. By investing enormous resources in the training and development of Qualcomm employees, they not only create highly qualified employees but also motivate them to achieve more.
- Mergers and Acquisitions: A track record of successfully integrating additional companies through mergers and acquisitions. Over the past few years, it has successfully integrated several technology companies to optimize operations and establish a stable supply chain.
Weaknesses of Qualcomm
Strategy is all about choices and weaknesses are areas where companies can improve through SWOT analysis and leverage their competitive advantage and strategic positioning.
- More Investment is Needed in New Technologies: Given the scale of the expansion and the multiple geographic regions in which the company will expand, Qualcomm overall integrating processes requires more money to be invested in technology. Current investments in technology are not aligned with the company’s vision.
- Financial Planning is Not Being Performed Properly and Efficiently: The liquid asset ratio and liquidity ratio indicate that a company can use its cash more efficiently than it currently is.
- High Labour Outflow: Higher dropout rates compared to other organizations in the industry, Qualcomm, and have to spend significantly more on employee training and development than their competitors.
- Not Very Successful in Integrating Companies with Different Work Cultures: As mentioned earlier, Qualcomm is successful at integrating small companies. It has its share of failures to merge firms that have different work cultures.
- High Competition: The daily stock is high compared to its competitors, so the company has to raise more capital to invest in the channel. This could affect the long-term growth of Qualcomm.
- Product Marketing: Although the product is successful in terms of sales, its positioning and unique selling proposition are not clearly defined, making it vulnerable to attack from competitors in this sector.
Opportunities for Qualcomm
Opportunities are potential areas for companies to focus on to improve results, increase sales, and ultimately profit.
- New Environmental Policy: New opportunities will create a level playing field for everyone in the industry. This is a great opportunity for Qualcomm, Inc. to realize the benefits of new technologies and gain market share in new product categories.
- New Taxation Policy: New tax policies can have a significant impact on the way Qualcomm does business and open up new opportunities for them to increase its profitability.
- Open New Markets Through Government Agreements: New technology standards and government free trade agreements provided to Qualcomm opens up opportunities for Qualcomm to enter newly developed markets.
- Improve its Digital Presence: Being one of the top telecom equipment manufacturing companies in the world, Qualcomm should take the opportunity of the booming digital era and build a stronger relationship with its customers online using digital marketing strategies. Having a strong digital presence creates a lasting impression and attracts new customers.
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- Economic Recovery: Economic recovery and rising consumer spending after years of recession and slow industrial growth are opportunities for Qualcomm to attract new customers and increase market share.
Threats to Qualcomm
Threats are environmental factors that can harm a company’s development. Here are some of Qualcomm’s threats:
- User Experience: As Qualcomm works on improving the performance and user mobile experience with its semiconductors and chipsets. If somehow the user faces any lagging and hanging issues it directly questions the accountability of Qualcomm.
- Fierce Competition: Strong profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over the past two years, putting downward pressure on overall revenue as well as profitability.
- Liability Laws: Vary from country to country Qualcomm may face a variety of liability claims as a result of these market policy changes.
- Quantitative Increases in Commodities: This could jeopardize Qualcomm’s profitability. A shortage of skilled labour in certain global markets threatens Qualcomm’s continued earnings growth in the market.
- Operates Globally: Because the company operates in many countries, it is exposed to currency fluctuations, especially given the unstable political environment in many markets around the world. This may face some challenges in the market and may result in some losses as well.
This ends our elaborative SWOT analysis of Qualcomm. Let us conclude our learning below.
To Conclude
Qualcomm is a well-known semiconductors and software company with significant global positions. During the SWOT analysis of Qualcomm, we found that the company is highly dependent and enjoys strong brand awareness and trust from its customers. It has a solid logistic base and covers all markets it serves, but suffers from more active research and development from an increasing number of manufacturers and competitors in the same space.
But being such a huge brand across multiple countries, Qualcomm should continue to innovate and develop more products and launch them in the market with the best possible marketing strategies.
Especially digital marketing which is vital in today’s growing and expanding world, to get better results and to remain competitive in the market. If you don’t have any idea of what digital marketing is or want to learn more about it and upgrade yourself, here is IIDE’s 3 Month Advanced Online Digital Marketing Course to know more.
We hope this blog on the SWOT analysis of Qualcomm has given you a good insight into the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
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