Earnings Call Transcript - QCOM Q4 2025

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Qualcomm Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2025 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, November 5, 2025. Playback number for today's call is (877) 660-6853. International callers, please dial (201) 612-7415. The playback reservation number is 137-56092. I would now like to turn the call over to Mauricio Lopez-Hodoyan, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Lopez-Hodoyan, please go ahead.

Mauricio Lopez-Hodoyan, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Today's call will include prepared remarks by Cristiano Amon and Akash Palkhiwala. In addition, Alex Rogers will join the question-and-answer session. You can access our earnings release and a slide presentation that accompany this call on our Investor Relations website. In addition, this call is being webcast on qualcomm.com, and a replay will be available on our website later today. During the call today, we will use non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G, and you can find the related reconciliations to GAAP on our website. We will also make forward-looking statements, including projections and estimates of future events, business or industry trends or business or financial results. Actual events or results could differ materially from those projected in our forward-looking statements. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our most recent 10-K, which contain important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. And now to comments from Qualcomm's President and Chief Executive Officer, Cristiano Amon.

Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Mauricio, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. In fiscal Q4, we delivered another strong quarter with revenues of $11.3 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $3, both of which exceeded the high end of our guidance range. QCT revenues of $9.8 billion, up 9% sequentially were driven by strong end customer demand for Snapdragon-powered premium tier Android handsets, continued traction for automotive Snapdragon Digital Chassis and strength in IoT across industrial, Wi-Fi 7 access point, 5G fixed wireless and smart glasses. In addition, all 3 QCT revenue streams exceeded our expectations including record automotive quarterly revenues in excess of $1 billion. Licensing business revenues were $1.4 billion. Fiscal '25 non-GAAP revenues of $44 billion were up 13% year-over-year, with record QCT annual revenues of $38.4 billion, up 16% year-over-year, including automotive and IoT revenue growth of 36% and 22% year-over-year, respectively. We delivered 18% year-over-year growth in total QCT non-Apple revenues above our prior estimates. We remain on track to achieve our fiscal '29 long-term revenue commitment as outlined at our 2024 Investor Day. I will now share some key highlights from the business. At Snapdragon Summit in September, we introduced our Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 mobile platform for next-generation flagship AI smartphones. This platform is equipped with our custom-built third-generation Oryon CPU, the fastest mobile CPU ever, along with an upgraded NPU and GPU. With the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, we continue to set the pace of innovation in mobile processors. This year marked our 10th Snapdragon Summit with simultaneous events held in Maui and Beijing, validating the strength of our Snapdragon ecosystem. Leading China OEMs, including Xiaomi, Honor, Vivo and OnePlus announced their flagship phones at our event. More than 1,100 partners, analysts, tech influencers and press attended in person, and our keynotes captured over 26 million unique views across both events. Together with our announcement, Snapdragon Summit generated over 547 million social media impressions. In addition, our Snapdragon Insiders community of tech enthusiasts, developers and fans has grown to more than 20 million members worldwide. Our highly differentiated technology continues to drive increased brand visibility. During the quarter, Qualcomm debuted at 39 on the Interbrand Top 100 Global Brands list for 2025, reflecting the strength of Snapdragon. For the first time ever, Kantar's BrandZ most valuable Global Brands list included Snapdragon, where we ranked #38. Also at Summit, we unveiled our newest platforms for premium laptops, the Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme. Once again, our industry-leading processors continue to outperform competitors, surpassing Intel and AMD in both speed and power efficiency. Our latest NPU sets a new benchmark as the world's fastest AI engine for laptops, also exceeding Intel and AMD in performance. With the new Oryon Gen 3, we have the world's first 5-gigahertz CPU for the ultra-mobile laptop category with extended battery life. We now expect approximately 150 designs to be commercialized through 2026 and remain optimistic about the continued momentum for Snapdragon-powered AI PCs. As AI transforms human-computer interactions, intelligent wearables and specifically smart glasses are evolving into personal AI devices that can connect the user directly to an AI agent or model. This emerging category is growing at a remarkable pace and has reached an inflection point fueled by very strong demand for smart glasses from Meta. This quarter alone, Meta introduced several new Snapdragon-powered styles, including the Ray-Ban Meta second-generation glasses, the Oakley Meta Vanguard performance glasses and the Meta Ray-Ban display and neural band. In addition to Meta, our leadership in this space is reflected by the 30 designs in production or development with our global partners. They include Samsung, which recently launched Galaxy XR, a truly multimodal AI headset and the first device for Google's new AI native operating system, Android XR. We achieved a significant milestone in automotive with the launch of Snapdragon Ride Pilot, our first full system solution for L2+ automated driving. Developed in close collaboration with BMW, it debuted in the automaker's BMW iX3 EV SUV. Powered by our advanced self-driving software stack, Snapdragon Ride Pilot sets a new standard in automated driving, is designed for universal compatibility and seamless integration with automakers, unlocking L2+ driver assistant features like hands-free highway driving and urban navigation for vehicles worldwide. Snapdragon Ride Pilot is currently validated in 60 countries and extends to 100 in 2026. The broad interest from leading automakers globally is exceeding our expectations. At IAA Mobility, Qualcomm and Google announced an expanded partnership, including the integration of Google Gemini models to our suite of Snapdragon Digital Chassis solutions. Together, we will enable automakers to build and deploy personalized AI agents that act as an in-vehicle assistance, bringing multimodal edge-to-cloud AI to next-generation software-defined vehicles. In industrial IoT, we completed our acquisition of Arduino, a premier open-source hardware and software company with an IoT development ecosystem of more than 30 million users worldwide. This builds on our acquisitions of Edge Impulse and Foundries.io and accelerates our plans to provide a comprehensive edge AI development platform for a broad set of applications. With these new assets, we're expanding our portfolio to a wide range of customers and verticals, further cementing our position as the leader of AI for the edge. Additionally, we recently released the Arduino UNO Q single-board computer, powered by the Dragonwing processor. This full-stack edge AI platform enables the rapid development of solutions for applications ranging from smart home automation to industrial robotics, drones and more. AI data center growth is moving from training to dedicated inference workloads, and this trend is expected to accelerate in the coming years. The mass adoption and continuous use of AI applications is driving the industry to look for competitive alternatives that prioritize power-efficient performance and cost. We announced our entry into this market and recently unveiled our AI inference optimized AI200 and AI250 SoCs and associated accelerator cards and racks. We are very pleased to have HUMAIN as our first customer for these solutions with a target deployment of 200 megawatts starting in 2026. Looking ahead, we're executing on a multi-generation roadmap with an annual cadence. I would like to share that we're looking forward to providing an update in the first half of 2026 on our data center plans, including our roadmap performance and differentiated memory and compute technology. We'll also highlight our progress in other areas, including advanced robotics, next-generation ADAS, industrial edge AI and 6G devices and AI-powered RAN. As we execute on our strategy and expand our IP and capabilities, we believe we are one of the best positioned companies to lead the expansion of AI to the edge, edge-to-cloud hybrid AI and develop a power-efficient cloud inferencing solution. I will now turn the call over to Akash.

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Thank you, Cristiano, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me begin with our fourth fiscal quarter results. We are pleased with our strong non-GAAP performance with revenues of $11.3 billion and EPS of $3, both of which were above the high end of our guidance. QTL revenues of $1.4 billion and EBT margin of 72% were above the midpoint of our guidance, driven by slightly higher handset units. QCT delivered revenues of $9.8 billion and EBT of $2.9 billion with year-over-year growth of 13% and 17%, respectively. QCT EBT margin of 29% was at the high end of our guidance. QCT handset revenues of $7 billion increased 14% on a year-over-year basis, reflecting increased demand for premium Android handsets powered by our Snapdragon Elite Gen 5 platform. QCT IoT revenues of $1.8 billion grew 7% year-over-year, driven by strength across industrial and networking products and increased demand for AI smart glasses powered by our Snapdragon platform. In QCT Automotive, we surpassed the $1 billion quarterly revenue milestone, delivering 17% year-over-year revenue growth as the adoption of our Snapdragon Digital Chassis platform continues to accelerate. With the recent enactment of the One Big Beautiful tax bill, we now expect our non-GAAP tax rate to remain in the 13% to 14% range going forward, and we anticipate lower cash tax payments relative to prior expectations. This new legislation resulted in a noncash charge of $5.7 billion in the fourth fiscal quarter to reduce the value of our deferred tax assets. This charge is excluded from non-GAAP metrics but impacts our GAAP results. Before turning to guidance, I'd like to take a moment to highlight our strong performance in fiscal '25. We are incredibly pleased with our execution with non-GAAP revenues of $44 billion and EPS of $12.03, representing year-over-year growth of 13% and 18%, respectively. In QCT, we achieved 16% year-over-year revenue growth, driven by double-digit increases across all revenue streams, with IoT up 22% and automotive growing 36%. We also delivered QCT operating margins of 30%, in line with our long-term target as we have previously outlined. Over the past 5 years, our non-Apple QCT revenues grew at a 15% compounded annual growth rate. Similarly, over the last 2 years, our non-Apple QCT revenues grew by 17% and 18%, respectively. Lastly, we generated record free cash flow of $12.8 billion. And consistent with our commitment, we returned nearly 100% to stockholders through repurchases and dividends through the year. Now turning to guidance. In the first fiscal quarter, we expect to deliver record results with revenues in the range of $11.8 billion to $12.6 billion and non-GAAP EPS of $3.30 to $3.50. In QTL, we estimate revenues of $1.4 billion to $1.6 billion and EBT margins of 74% to 78%. In QCT, we expect record revenues of $10.3 billion to $10.9 billion and EBT margins of 30% to 32%. We anticipate record QCT handset revenues with low teens percentage growth sequentially, primarily driven by new flagship Android handset launches powered by Snapdragon. Following our outperformance for QCT IoT revenues in the fourth quarter, we expect a sequential decline consistent with last year, driven by seasonality in consumer products. In QCT Automotive, following a record fourth quarter, we estimate revenues in the first fiscal quarter to remain flat to slightly up on a sequential basis. Lastly, we forecast non-GAAP operating expenses to be approximately $2.45 billion in the quarter. In closing, as we approach 1 year since outlining our growth strategy at Investor Day, I'd like to provide an update on the progress towards our $22 billion fiscal '29 revenue target across automotive and IoT. In automotive, we've established ourselves as the most strategic silicon partner for OEMs globally. The accelerating adoption of our Snapdragon Digital Chassis platform and 36% year-over-year revenue growth in fiscal '25 puts us on track to achieve our $8 billion revenue target. Across IoT, the increasing importance of artificial intelligence, high-performance, low-power computing and connectivity validated by our 22% year-over-year revenue growth in fiscal '25 reinforces our confidence in achieving our $14 billion revenue target. In Industrial, increasing customer engagement and growth in design win pipeline, combined with our recent acquisitions to unlock access to 30 million users, underlines our confidence in strong revenue growth through the end of the decade. In XR, we're exceeding prior expectations on strong demand for AI smart glasses, and we remain the platform of choice for smart glasses and mixed reality devices across leading global OEMs and ecosystems. In PCs, we extended our technology leadership with the recent launch of Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme platforms, which deliver multigenerational performance increases across CPU, GPU and AI. Given our strong pipeline of approximately 150 design wins, we're optimistic about the growth potential for Snapdragon-powered AI PCs as we expand our presence across global consumer and enterprise channels. In networking, our continued innovation and leadership in WiFi, 5G, edge processing and AI, combined with our integrated platform approach positions us to drive content growth and adoption globally. As Cristiano outlined, beyond our revenue target, we're also pursuing incremental opportunities across data center and robotics. Finally, I want to thank our employees for exceptional execution and continuing to deliver industry-leading technologies and products. This concludes our prepared remarks. Back to you, Mauricio.

Mauricio Lopez-Hodoyan, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, Akash. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Operator, Operator

First question, which will come from the line of Joshua Buchalter with TD Cowen.

Joshua Buchalter, Analyst

Congrats on a stellar set of results in a bumpy backdrop. I wanted to start with the data center business. I realize you're going to provide more details in the first half of 2026, and my questions might get punted as a result. But maybe you could spend a few minutes talking about what you see as Qualcomm's right to win in the data center space? And any details you can provide on the specs of the AI200 and 250 beyond what you were able to offer in the press release when the HUMAIN engagement was announced. And then lastly, on this topic, last quarter, you called out, I believe, a hyperscale engagement. I assume that's distinct from the HUMAIN engagement and any details on timing there?

Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer

Josh, thanks for your question and thank you. Yes. Look, we're very excited. I think this is the next chapter of, I think, the process we have been in Qualcomm to changing the company, diversifying the company, expanding our IP. I think that's one of the reasons I think we made acquisitions such as Alphawave. We think there are 2 areas that we outlined that we can participate in the data center. We were incredibly excited about the size of the opportunity in the next phase, I think, of data center build-out where there's going to be real competition. We go from training to inference. We have been focused on 2 areas. One is we believe we have one very strategic asset in the industry, which is very competitive, power-efficient CPU. That is both for the head node of AI clusters as well as general-purpose compute. And then we also have been building what we think is a new architecture dedicated for inference. I think the focus has been on increased compute density and simplifying the architecture for the data center in terms of increased performance per watt. I think it's all going to be about generating the most amount of tokens with the least amount of power, and that's our right to play. We're excited about what we're doing that has been in development. It's something that we're actually doing in a very disciplined manner. We spend a lot of time, I think, with our early experimentation with AI100 to develop the software. And then we're now building AI200, AI250, both the SoC, the card, direct solutions. I think we're pleased with what we're seeing. We will provide more details on that as you outlined early next year. Specific to your questions, I think we were in discussion with a hyperscaler. We're very pleased with the outcome of that conversation, and that's going to be part of our update when we provide details on the road map, the performance, the KPI, we'll be able to show details of the solution as well as our customer engagement. We are in conversation with a lot of companies. It's clear the market wants competition for this. But in a typical Qualcomm way, we're just going to be focused on executing and show the products performing. Like I said, this is an exciting new chapter of our expansion. And alongside robotics, those are kind of new opportunities for us.

Joshua Buchalter, Analyst

I appreciate the information provided and look forward to the updates. For my follow-up, I would like to ask about the handset market. You mentioned your ongoing momentum in the Android sector as a driver of growth in the calendar fourth quarter during your prepared remarks. There has been significant discussion regarding your leading Android customer possibly shifting towards using an internal modem more than they have in previous years. Could you discuss how well you understand your share with that customer and what kind of share you expect to see over the next year?

Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you for the question. I want to address this topic because I think there may be unnecessary noise. First, our Snapdragon and premium tier Android business has been consistently strong and continues to grow. The premium tier is expanding and incorporating more computing power, which is why our Android business grows despite a relatively flat handset market. This growth in the premium tier drives our content, average selling prices, and earnings. A significant portion of our success with handsets comes from the Android premium tier. Regarding our relationship with Samsung, for several years we have indicated that what was once a normal relationship at a 50% share has shifted to a new baseline of about 75%. This will be our financial assumption moving forward. When we perform exceptionally well, we can exceed 75%, as seen with the Galaxy S25 where we achieved 100%. For any new Galaxy models, including the Galaxy S26, we will continue to assume a 75% share.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from the line of Samik Chatterjee with JPMorgan.

Samik Chatterjee, Analyst

Cristiano, you mentioned the data center side, specifically regarding the price performance for the inference work you're aiming to achieve. Many training clusters we've observed from other competitors have installation costs estimated between $30 billion to $40 billion per gigawatt. Can you provide clarity on your thoughts about deployment costs on a gigawatt basis, particularly in relation to the price performance associated with these inference workloads that the AI 200 or AI 250 can handle? Additionally, I'm interested in understanding the revenue implications for HUMAIN when you deploy 200 megawatts with them. I have a follow-up as well.

Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. I'm going to try to give as much color as I can without getting ahead of the update we're going to provide next year. So first, let's just have a broader discussion about revenue. What we said before is that we expect data center products to start leading to a revenue ramp beginning in fiscal '28. As a result of the HUMAIN engagement and our progress on the AI accelerator, I think we're pulling this forward into fiscal '27. You should expect now from what we said before, I think data center revenue is going to start to become material in fiscal '27. So I think that's the extent of what I can provide at this moment. It's about a 1-year pulling. The second thing is we are getting interest. You should assume that companies are having to deploy as much compute as they need in the data center for inference, especially now that you see the constraints that you have on power, the constraints that you have on compute density. I think we have a lot of folks interested. We were not having conversations if we didn't have a solution that is competitive. But we will show the KPIs of the platform, I think, when we have a roadmap update early next year.

Samik Chatterjee, Analyst

Okay. Got it. And maybe the second one, similar to Josh's question. I think, Akash, if I'm interpreting the market's reaction to your strong numbers, there seems to be that concern about what March looks like with the change in share at the primary Android customer. Typically, on the handset side, your quarter-over-quarter decline into March has been sort of this high single-digit pace. Is that still a good run rate with sort of the lower level of share? Or would you sort of guide us otherwise? Because I think that's really what the market seems to be sort of concerned about at this point.

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Yes, Samik, thanks for the question. We're not guiding beyond first quarter at this point. But when you look at our strong business momentum exiting fiscal '25, you see the benefit of that showing up in our results also showing up in the December quarter guidance. And so that carries forward into the rest of the fiscal year. The only additional thing I'd note is just a reminder that we expect to close our Alphawave acquisition in the first calendar quarter of '26. But otherwise, I think the business momentum is strong and just a couple of factors that you outlined.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from the line of Timothy Arcuri with UBS.

Timothy Arcuri, Analyst

Akash, when you talked about September, you mentioned that the strong performance was mainly due to premium Android. However, it appears that a significant portion came from your top customer, even though you previously indicated that about 30% of units would be removed, which was roughly $500 million. It seems that the reduction from that customer was not nearly that significant and was almost flat year-over-year. Can you clarify this? Additionally, can you provide insight into how much that customer contributes as a baseline assumption for December? It seems that the model featuring their modem isn't performing very well, so I would expect that to be a positive factor for you in calendar Q4. I also have a second question.

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Sure, Tim. As we had said earlier, we expected to be in 3 of the 4 models of the phone that was launched. And so that is exactly what happened. And share, of course, is based on what sell-through plays out. Specifically on the September quarter question, we already had kind of demand from the customer that was factored into the guidance we gave. So the upside we saw was not from Apple. It was really driven by Android customers and primarily the premium tier with the launch of our new Snapdragon chip. When you look at the sequential trend as well, as I mentioned, we are forecasting approximately low teens sequential revenue growth in the handset revenue stream for QCT and primarily driven by Android as well. So there is some benefit from Apple, but the primary driver for the growth quarter-over-quarter is actually Android premium tier shipments.

Timothy Arcuri, Analyst

Okay. And then is there any update on the negotiation with Huawei for a license? It seems like it's kind of dragging on a little bit. Can you just talk about that?

Alexander Rogers, Alex Rogers

Yes. This is Alex. Thanks for the question. No, we actually don't have an update now. Discussions are still underway, really nothing substantive to say beyond that.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from the line of Stacy Rasgon with Bernstein Research.

Stacy Rasgon, Analyst

So you noted the non-Apple QCT revenue was up 18% year-over-year. Even if I take out the auto and the IoT, it's clear that the Android piece was up like pretty strong double digits year-over-year. So am I right in assuming that's all content or primarily content given I don't think units grew that much? And is that the right sort of pace of like further content increase that we ought to be thinking about as we go forward?

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Yes. Stacy, you are correct in your calculations. There are two main factors driving this. First, we are seeing a shift in the mix of units sold, a trend that has been evident over the past few years. Although it is often associated with developed markets, it is not limited to them; it is also happening in developing regions. Higher-tier devices are increasingly being purchased, which positively impacts our revenue. The second factor is in the premium tier. As we continue to produce more advanced chips, the capabilities of handsets are improving, leading to an increase in content. These two factors primarily drive the long-term trends in our handset business.

Stacy Rasgon, Analyst

Got it. And if I could have a quick follow-up. Just the Snapdragon Android strength in September and December, is that primarily China? And are there any concerns there? I mean, is that just the timing of the launches? Like any thoughts on pull-forward or anything like that? Anything we ought to be thinking about there?

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Yes, there's no pull-forward. Most of our customers in China, particularly the major ones, have already launched their devices, and the initial reception has been very positive. We expect many of our global customers to launch their devices later this quarter and into early next year. This situation reflects typical purchasing patterns associated with device launches and the strong initial consumer response to these launches.

Operator, Operator

The next question is from the line of Chris Caso with Wolfe Research.

Christopher Caso, Analyst

I have a question about the AI data center. I understand you will provide more details later, but there are some specifications available, which is why I'm asking. From what we've noticed, the architecture mentioned in the press release seems different from what others are using in the market, particularly with DDR memory and PCI Express. Should we view this as Qualcomm's initial strategy with more developments to follow? Or is this a fundamentally different approach to competing in the market? You mentioned a focus on being more efficient with power consumption. Is this strategy significantly different from what currently exists in the market?

Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer

I believe the answer to the question is yes. We are considering what the future architecture should look like. Previously, we mentioned that we have been thinking about this for the edge as well. This means that when we consider dedicated inferencing clusters, our goal is to achieve the highest possible compute density at the lowest cost and energy consumption for generating tokens. We believe that an architecture beyond traditional GPU setups, including conventional GPU and HBM, is what we should pursue. This is what we are developing, and we need to execute it, which is currently the focus of the company.

Christopher Caso, Analyst

Got it. Regarding handsets, you mentioned a shift towards the premium tier. To what extent has the growth in handsets been influenced by Snapdragon average selling prices? Additionally, as wafer prices increase with finer geometries, can you discuss the effect of higher average selling prices on handset growth, both currently and in the future, and how the industry adapts to these increased prices?

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Yes. So I think there's a long-term trend that we've seen. This is a conversation that we have every year, but we continue to see just very strong demand for more capable chips, more capable processing in these premium tier chips. And so the competition between the OEMs drives it, the demand for consumers doing more activity on the phone drives it. We know the next couple of chips that we are making, and we're already in advanced discussions with our customers. So we feel pretty confident that there are legs to this trend over the next several years. The second factor that I outlined is important to keep in mind as well is this very significant mix shift towards more premium devices. That's not about content growth within the tier, but it's more about more capable devices being purchased by consumers. That's a multiyear trend that we're continuing to see going forward.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from the line of Tal Liani with Bank of America.

Tal Liani, Analyst

If I look at this quarter, you saw a 14% growth in handsets, and it appears that for next quarter, you're projecting an additional 600 basis points of growth above market expectations for QCT. Can you discuss the factors contributing to this outperformance for next quarter? Specifically, can you provide insights on IoT, autos, and handsets? Where do you anticipate exceeding your previous expectations from last quarter? Additionally, can you share some details on how next quarter is shaping up in terms of the QCT breakdown?

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Tal, just to confirm, your question is about the December quarter, first fiscal quarter?

Tal Liani, Analyst

Yes, first fiscal quarter, sorry. The question is about the guidance for next quarter. Yes.

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Yes, in automotive, we achieved a record quarter in September with approximately $1.1 billion in revenue, and we are expecting results to be flat to slightly higher in this sector. We believe that as more cars are launched featuring our technology, we will continue to increase our revenue throughout the year. IoT is in a similar position; we experienced significant growth above our expectations in the September quarter and are set to keep increasing revenue starting in the first quarter and throughout the rest of the fiscal year. In handsets, the growth we anticipate for the December quarter is largely due to the successful launch of our new chip, which will be featured in devices from all major OEMs. We've received a strong positive response from consumers, which is reflected in our financial projections. Sequentially, we expect low teens revenue growth in the handset segment in QCT.

Tal Liani, Analyst

My follow-up question relates to the historical perspective: when you introduce a product in China around the New Year, is the first fiscal quarter typically the strongest? How does seasonality affect the following quarters based on historical data?

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

We anticipate that our first and second fiscal quarters will be the strongest of the year. Typically, the June quarter, or third fiscal quarter, tends to be weaker. This seasonality should align with what you've observed in the handset business previously.

Operator, Operator

The next questions come from the line of C.J. Muse with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Christopher Muse, Analyst

I wanted to kind of focus on QCT EBT margins and revenues grew 5% year-on-year, yet margins were down 100-plus bps. I'm curious, is that a function of mix? Or is that a function of higher manufacturing costs? Or is it simply R&D investments for future revenue growth?

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Yes. I think when you look at the year-over-year trend, you should think of us investing in the data center area, which over the last several years, we've been focusing OpEx on moving from mature businesses into growth areas. Data center is incremental to the investment profile that we have.

Christopher Muse, Analyst

Okay. It's very helpful. And then I guess just to hone in on your non-Android handset business. Is there an update in terms of how we should model that for calendar '26?

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

No change to what we've said on share within Apple versus what we've said in the past.

Operator, Operator

The next question comes from the line of Ben Rizes with Melius Research.

Benjamin Reitzes, Analyst

I wanted to revisit the data center event you mentioned, where updates are expected next calendar year. During the Analyst Day, you set long-term targets for FY '29, and I believe the smallest opportunity identified was in XR at $2 billion. If we're having this event, it seems likely that the potential could be significantly larger than that $2 billion figure for XR, potentially representing another multibillion opportunity. Could you please clarify this?

Akash Palkhiwala, CFO

Yes, Ben, that's a great observation. I think we're seeing this market take off very fast, especially AI smart glasses. We definitely feel like we're significantly ahead of the guidance that we had provided and very significant upside opportunity. If you kind of step back and think about the broader opportunity around personal AI, you could think of it as the glasses form factor or the watch form factor or hearables form factor. This could be a very, very large market. If that plays out as we suspect it might, it will create significant upside opportunity.

Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks for the question. I understand it now. Yes, there's upside on that number, and success in this area presents us with a potential multibillion-dollar revenue opportunity in a couple of years. That's how we're currently thinking about it.

Operator, Operator

That concludes today's question-and-answer session. Mr. Amon, do you have anything further to add before adjourning the call?

Cristiano Amon, President and Chief Executive Officer

I just want to thank all of our partners, our employees, and we are continuing to change Qualcomm into a very diversified company. We're probably one of the few companies among all the semiconductor companies that can go from 5 watts to 500 watts with very flexible and broad technology capabilities. I think one thing that we take pride of in every industry that we enter, we have a platform that is a leading technology platform, and we're excited about the future of the company, and we're just going to keep executing on this strategy. Thank you very much for supporting our call.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.