Qualcomm Starts India Job Cuts as Handset Revenue Falls 26%

By Grace Kim

Qualcomm reported $10.44 billion in quarterly revenue as handset revenue fell 26%, while job cuts began in India and were expected in California. The chipmaker’s shares fell about 9% the day after the results, when its outlook flagged rising memory costs and assumed no further Apple sales.

Which job cuts are confirmed?

Qualcomm has begun the job reductions it flagged to staff last month. Some employees in India have received layoff notices. The company is expected to file notices under California’s WARN Act in the coming days, Investing.com reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the plans.

Qualcomm declined to comment. Earlier reports put the India reduction at up to 1,000 people. The sources cited by Investing.com said the actual number should be significantly lower, though they did not provide an exact count. Qualcomm has not confirmed the number of California employees affected.

The 1,000-worker figure is therefore an earlier estimate, not a confirmed outcome. The source also did not identify a final companywide reduction target. The report placed the notices within a broader action that Qualcomm had described internally as global. It separated confirmed India notices from the California filings still expected.

What did Qualcomm tell employees?

CEO Cristiano Amon described the action in an internal October memo, first reported by Reuters, as a “performance-focused reduction” across Qualcomm’s global operations.

The company expected affected staff to receive notification in November after annual performance reviews. Amon wrote: “We must have the right people in the right roles so they can perform at their best.” Qualcomm did not disclose how many jobs would go.

The people familiar with the plans said the cuts were not tied to Qualcomm’s AI strategy. That remains a source-based description rather than a company explanation. Qualcomm did not connect the reduction to a particular product program, customer or facility. The report identifies India and California as affected locations, but assigns no separate headcount to either.

Qualcomm had about 57,000 employees in more than 200 locations across 38 countries as of Sept. 27. The company did not say how the action would be distributed across that footprint. Its global employee count also left the earlier 1,000-worker estimate without company confirmation.

How do earnings frame the reductions?

The cuts come as demand for smartphone processors weakens, Investing.com reported. In quarterly results released last week, Qualcomm recorded total revenue of $10.44 billion, while handset revenue fell 26%. The company’s shares dropped about 9% the day after the report.

The earnings release and outlook therefore arrived alongside weaker handset sales and a restructuring that had reached India but not yet produced a disclosed California total.

MLQ.ai reported that Qualcomm’s outlook assumed no further sales to Apple and flagged rising memory costs. The Apple assumption belongs to the forward outlook, not to reported quarterly revenue. The report gave no associated revenue figure. Likewise, the memory-cost warning included no dollar impact, pricing response or revised processor-output plan.

That leaves three commercial questions for the next disclosures. How many positions Qualcomm removes under the performance review process; how rising memory costs affect the economics of its handset processors; and whether an outlook with no further Apple sales translates into lower handset revenue.

The source provides no answer to those questions yet, beyond the confirmed start of layoffs in India and the expected California WARN filings.

The coming California notices should clarify the scale of the action, while later results will show whether memory costs and the Apple sales assumption deepen pressure on Qualcomm’s handset business.