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The company’s latest quarterly report reveals new focus areas.

Qualcomm recently published its fiscal fourth quarter earnings report included automotive and IoT sales. These two sectors also rely on 5G, as does Qualcomm;s core business. However the move into them signals the company’s strategic intent to move away from simply Smartphones.

Some of the salient moves by Qualcomm are revealed in the company’s quarterly financials. For example: Qualcomm’s IoT revenue has expanded the last three quarters and nearing a $4 billion run rate. Networking, retail, industrial, tracking and utility verticals are driving the IoT growth.

Qualcomm’s fourth quarter handset revenue was just a few weeks of sales from a big OEM customer (think Apple).

Auto and IoT is getting top priority at Qualcomm, according to CEO

CEO Steven Mollenkopf explained the push into the new sectors. “As we have in RF, we have built beachhead positions in both auto and IoT. Our scale enables us to make multiple profitable bets in areas where we expect a tailwind as each of these industry road maps adopt cellular technologies, as you can see taking place today in automotive, where we have emerged as a strategic technology partner to the automotive industry, with nearly all the major OEMs adopting our products. Next-generation 5G telematics design wins, in addition to our 3G and 4G design wins, solidify our position as a leader in connected cars.”

Indeed, Qualcomm just recently announced a collaboration with a broad range of companies in China. The aim is to showcase the complete ecosystem with “cellular vehicle-to-everything” (C-V2X) at the core.

Edge computing and Cloud applications are also a focus

Qualcomm is also going after edge computing and cloud infrastructure, according to Mollenkopf. “Turning to inference, with over 10 years of AI R&D and over 1 billion AI-capable devices enabled with our technology, and fundamental assets such as low-power compute, process node leadership and signal processing expertise, we are well positioned to extend our smartphone AI leadership into growing applications, such as data centers, edge appliances and 5G infrastructure,” he said.

Tip: Study shows firms using AI and IoT beat competitors using just IoT