The company's earnings and outlook

Qualcomm (QCOM) shares rose after the postmarket on Wednesday after the chipmaker achieved better-than-expected sales and revenue reports. The high sales outlook for the holiday quarter shows that Qualcomm is responding well to the industry's semiconductor shortage.

Qualcomm (QCOM) reported a successful fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 after the close of trading on Wednesday.

Qualcomm shares, down 9 per cent year-to-date, were up sharply by 6.74 per cent in the post-market.

Qualcomm's report compared with Wall Street analysts' forecast

Qualcomm's Q4 earnings per share rose 76% to $2.55.

Revenue rose 43% to $9.3 billion, also beating forecast of $8.86 billion.

Qualcomm's sales for the full 2021 fiscal year were $33.47 billion, up from $21.65 billion a year ago, and earnings rose to $9.8 billion or $8.54 per share, up from $4.19 earnings per share a year earlier.

Qualcomm also said it bought back $771 million worth of shares in the past quarter, raising its total for the year to $3.4 billion.

Qualcomm's latest announced dividend is $0.68 per share, an annual return of 2.02%.

Qualcomm forecasts The company is currently forecasting total global shipments of its 5G smartphone chips for calendar year 2021 to be between 500 million and 550 million, down from the previous forecast range of 450 million to 550 million.

Qualcomm's forecast for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, which ends on 31 March. 2022, which will end on December 31, is: revenue in the range of $10 $10.8 billion and earnings per share of $2.90 $3.10.

Qualcomm report details

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said the company met its financial targets for 2021 for both sales growth and profit growth through strong growth in all divisions, which is positive for its revenue diversification strategy.

Total revenue for the company's chip sales segment, known as QCT, grew 56% to $4.68 billion, of which sales of radio chips for 5G networks grew 45% to $1.24 billion and sales of low-power chips for connecting other devices to the internet grew 66% to $1.5 billion.

Revenues from automotive chip sales grew 44% to $270 million. Qualcomm announced several partnerships with automakers such as GM in Q4.

Technology licensing operations, known as QTL, revenues rose 3% to $1.55 bln.