Fast Technology reported on October 23 that the global consumer electronics market is experiencing a harsh winter, with the smartphone industry being particularly affected. Even Qualcomm, a chip giant that has long held the upper hand in the market, is now facing a large-scale layoff.
According to a local US media report, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has informed all employees in an internal memo that the company plans to launch a global mass layoff after the annual performance evaluation process is completed. The personnel changes are expected to be notified to relevant employees starting from November.
As of the time of writing, Qualcomm has not made any public response to the layoff-related news, nor has it disclosed the specific positions, personnel scale, and regional scope affected by the layoff.
The news of layoffs comes at a time when the global smartphone market is facing a double whammy of continued price hikes for storage chips and weakening consumer demand. The revenue side is under severe pressure.
Apple has been steadily pushing forward with the deployment of its self-developed baseband chips, which has directly shaken the stable revenue base of Qualcomm in the mobile baseband chip market, bringing long-term pressure to Qualcomm's core chip revenue.
Currently, the global smartphone market is experiencing a overall downturn, and even Apple, which has long dominated the high-end market, is facing significant income decline pressure. The operating situation of upstream chip manufacturers can be imagined. The current operating pressure on Qualcomm is directly caused by the continued sluggishness of the global smartphone market.
Recently, the international data company IDC released the preliminary statistics of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2026, showing that the global smartphone shipments in the quarter decreased by 22% year-on-year, reaching 255.3 million, setting a record for the largest year-on-year decline in single-quarter shipments in IDC's publicly available records.
Qualcomm's mobile chip business performance decline has already been reflected in publicly disclosed financial report data. According to the official financial report information, the company's mobile chip business revenue in the third quarter of 2026 was $5.086 billion, down 20% year-on-year; the total revenue of QCT business, which includes mobile, automotive, and IoT chips, was $8.504 billion in the same period, down 5% year-on-year.
