Company
Listed
Qualcomm
Qualcomm Incorporated was founded in 1985 and designs semiconductors and wireless technologies. It is listed on NASDAQ and headquartered in San Diego, California.
The business has two distinct halves. One designs and sells Snapdragon processors and modems for smartphones and, increasingly, for vehicles and connected devices. The other licenses the company’s patent portfolio in mobile communications standards, earning royalties on handsets sold by other manufacturers, a model that has drawn repeated regulatory and legal challenge.
Qualcomm’s diversification beyond handsets, into automotive and extended reality, is the test of whether a company built on one market’s standards can carry that position into others.
