Qualcomm ups outlook on higher demand

Qualcomm boosted its financial outlook for its fiscal third quarter on better sales of high-end chipsets, another sign this week that the chip market may be turning around after a series of rough quarters.

The company said it expects revenue in the quarter of $2.67 billion to $2.77 billion, up from its previous estimate of between $2.4 billion and $2.6 billion. Qualcomm also said it expects to ship 109 to 111 million CDMA units (CDMA2000 and WCDMA) in the quarter, a narrowing of its previous range of 107 to 112 million units.

"Our increased guidance reflects stronger than expected demand for more data-capable chipsets and increased licensing revenues driven in part by advanced 3G network upgrades," Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs said in a statement. "While some chipset demand for developing markets has shifted to the fourth fiscal quarter and demand remains generally strong, due to the current economic environment we remain cautious and currently project a modest sequential decrease in chipset shipments."

The news comes days after Texas Instruments raised its guidance for its second quarter.

In other Qualcomm news, semiconductor company Freescale also is putting its marketing muscle behind smartbooks [1]--a term recently promoted by Qualcomm and an effort by semiconductor to cash in on consumers' apparent appetite for gadgets smaller than a laptop but bigger than a smartphone.

For more:
- see this release [2]
- see this BusinessWeek article [3]

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