Qualcomm's Mollenkopf faces a tough task: keep the growth going

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) CEO Steve Mollenkopf has been at the helm of Qualcomm for a little more than a year now, and although he has a quiet public style, inside the chipset maker he is showing his competitive side by working to make sure that the company can capture the next wave of growth in computing as the smartphone market matures. That's the impression he and Qualcomm give off in a Bloomberg profile of Mollenkopf one year into his CEO gig. 

"We've been very fortunate to be successful in the handset space," Mollenkopf, a 20-year company veteran, told Bloomberg. "Looking forward we're in a position where that continues to be a good business, but now we want to figure out how to grow in other areas."

Qualcomm said its revenue for this coming fiscal year is expected to increase just 3 percent as the smartphone market matures and competition intensifies from MediaTek, Intel, Samsung Electronics and others. That's definitely a shift from the three-year period before Mollenkopf was promoted to CEO, when Qualcomm more than doubled its sales.

As Qualcomm looks ahead to the Internet of Things, and getting its chips into cars and servers, all eyes will be on whether and how Mollenkopf can continue the growth trajectory. Article