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Is QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) overvalued or undervalued?

Updated Nov 10, 2026 · hand-researched model · educational, not advice

Fair-value range
$73.91 – $257.59
Market price
$171.47
Gap to fair value
—
Verdict
Price inside our range of estimates

Test the assumptions — move the discount rate

The DCF value below is a real engine result at each WACC (not a re-estimate). Drag to see how sensitive QCOM's DCF is to the discount rate.

Market price: $171.47

At a recent price of $171.47, QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) sits inside our range of estimates: our valuation lenses put the business somewhere between $73.91 and $257.59 per share. For a cyclical we value through the cycle we publish a range only (peer multiples and our researched mid-cycle DCF): where in the cycle the business sits decides where in that range it lands, and a single figure would claim we know that precisely. This is an educational model, not a price target or a recommendation.

The valuation discounts QUALCOMM Incorporated's projected free cash flows at a weighted-average cost of capital (WACC) of 13.0%, with a long-run terminal growth rate of 2.5%. About 66% of the enterprise value comes from the terminal value — the portion beyond the explicit forecast window — which is typical for a stable, cash-generative business and a reminder that small changes in the discount rate or terminal growth assumption swing the intrinsic value meaningfully.

Running the DCF in reverse — solving for the growth the current price already assumes — QCOM would need sustained revenue growth of more than 25%/yr to justify today's price, against about 5.8% a year compounded in our base case. We don't quote a precise figure here, because past about 25% a year the reverse-DCF stops being informative: it solves for revenue growth alone, holding margins, capital intensity and the forecast horizon fixed, so a price well above our fair value has nowhere to go but growth. The honest reading is that the price implies growth this model can't reconcile — not that we forecast it.

Sensitivity matters more than any single number. Across a reasonable band of discount-rate assumptions, QCOM's modeled DCF value ranges from about $59.48 to $97.23 per share. If that range still sits below today's price, the market is optimistic relative to the model across the whole band; if it brackets the price, the stock is roughly fairly valued on our assumptions. Use the interactive slider to see exactly where your own cost-of-capital view lands.

How to read this page: the DCF fair value is what QUALCOMM Incorporated would be worth if its cash flows grow as modeled and are discounted at the stated WACC. The assumptions table shows every input and its source; the reverse-DCF shows what the market believes; the sensitivity band shows how fragile the answer is. None of this is investment advice — it is a transparent, auditable framework for forming your own view of QCOM's intrinsic value. Figures update as new filings and prices come in.

The assumptions behind QCOM's DCF

InputValueSource
Base-year revenue$44,284,000,000QCOM FY2025 10-K for the year ended 2025-09-28 (accession 0000804328-25-000085, filed 2025-11-05): Total revenues, fiscal year ended 2025-09-28: $44,284M (+13.7% on FY2024's $38,962M) — equipment and services $37,869M, licensing $6,415M. Segments: QCT $38,367M (handsets $27,793M, automotive $3,957M, IoT $6,617M), QTL $5,582M. Includes $143M of unallocated licensing revenue from a dispute settlement (Q2 FY2025), so the like-for-like base is $44,141M. FY2026 is NOT yet filed (the year ended ~2026-09-27; the 10-K is due ~early November), so FY2025 is the last completed year with a 10-K. CROSS-CHECK: Q1-Q3 FY2026 revenue $32,798M vs $33,013M a year earlier (-0.7%); Q3 alone $9,947M (-4%). TTM through 2026-06-28: $44,069M.
Base EBIT margin27.9%QCOM FY2025 10-K for the year ended 2025-09-28 (accession 0000804328-25-000085, filed 2025-11-05): GAAP operating income $12,355M / revenue $44,284M = 27.90%. AFTER $2,783M of stock-based compensation (6.3% of revenue), $321M of acquired-intangible amortization and $39M of restructuring ('Other'). Non-GAAP operating margin, which adds SBC and other items back, was 35.0% ($15,453M / $44,141M, per the Ex-99.1 reconciliation) — this model uses GAAP. SEGMENT VIEW, which is the point of this company: QCT EBT $11,670M on $38,367M = 30%; QTL EBT $4,043M on $5,582M = 72%. Licensing is 12.6% of revenue but ~26% of segment profit. CROSS-CHECK, AND THIS IS WHY YEAR 1 FALLS: Q1-Q3 FY2026 GAAP operating income $7,302M / $32,798M = 22.3%, Q3 alone $1,626M / $9,947M = 16.3%. QCT EBT margin fell to 26% in Q3 (from 30%) on higher product cost (wafer, packaging, memory inflation) and R&D up 17% YoY ($2,607M vs $2,226M) as the data-center push is funded ahead of revenue.
Forecast revenue growth-3% → 4% → 10% → 11% → 8%Assumption — TickerWorth's 5-year explicit forecast
Risk-free rate5.2%US 10Y Treasury constant maturity (FRED DGS10): 5.24% on 2026-10-01, the latest published observation. Shared by every model in this tracker.
Beta1.68Yahoo Finance / yfinance published beta (5Y monthly): Published 5-year monthly beta 1.679, used as published, NOT normalized. It is high for Qualcomm's history — the window holds the 2022 semiconductor drawdown, a 52-week range of $121.99-$259.92, and single-day moves of +15% (Investor Day, 2026-06-24) and -6% (2026-09-28). There is an argument that a licensing-anchored company deserves lower, but the stock has genuinely traded like a leveraged semiconductor name, and this tracker uses published betas for AMD (1.6), NVDA (1.86) and AVGO (1.457). THIS IS THE SINGLE LARGEST LEVER: beta 1.3 gives ~$91/share and 1.0 gives ~$111. Normalizing down would raise the value; I did not.
Terminal growth2.5%Assumption — house default: House default 2.5% (roughly long-run nominal GDP), kept for comparability. No strong reason to deviate: the handset royalty base is mature, data center and auto are not. Well below the 13.0% WACC; 2.0% costs ~$2.70/share.
Diluted shares1,069MQCOM Q3 FY2026 earnings release, 8-K Ex-99.1 (accession 0000804328-26-000085, filed 2026-07-29): Q3 FY2026 weighted-average diluted shares 1,069M (nine months 1,073M; FY2025 1,105M). Period-end outstanding was 1,057M (1,074M at FY2025 year-end + 25M issued - 42M repurchased). Two KNOWN post-quarter items are NOT in this count and both dilute: (1) ~18M shares issued for Modular on 2026-07-28 (about 1.7%; Q4 buybacks have since offset much of it — yfinance shows 1,068M outstanding); (2) the Amazon warrant (8-K 2026-09-08) for up to 25M shares at $161.26, of which 3.75M vested on issuance. Using the house rule (latest-quarter weighted diluted count) OVERSTATES per-share value by roughly 1%.
Market price$171.47Delayed quote · as of 2026-11-10 04:59 UTC

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TickerWorth is an educational DCF tool, not a licensed investment adviser. Figures are estimates derived from public filings and market data and can be wrong.