Assessing Qualcomm’s Appeal Post-2025: AI and 5G Driving Share Price Recovery
If you are wondering whether QUALCOMM is still a smart buy at current levels, you are not alone. This stock sits right at the crossroads of hype and genuine long term value.
The share price closed around $174.81 recently, up 4.0% over the last week. It is still down 2.7% over the past month but up 13.8% year to date and 12.0% over the last year, with a 57.2% gain over three years.
Those moves have come as investors refocus on QUALCOMM’s role in 5G, AI enabled smartphones and connected devices, alongside growing interest in its broader licensing and automotive platforms. Together, these themes have helped shift sentiment toward QUALCOMM as more than just a cyclical handset supplier and more of an infrastructure and IP powerhouse.
On our framework, QUALCOMM scores a 3/6 valuation score, meaning it screens as undervalued on half of the key checks we run. Next, we will walk through those traditional valuation lenses before finishing with a more holistic way to decide what this stock is really worth.
A Discounted Cash Flow model estimates what a company is worth by projecting the cash it can generate in the future and discounting those cash flows back to today. For QUALCOMM, this means taking its current Free Cash Flow of about $12.6 billion, estimating how it might grow, and then translating that stream into a single present value.
Analysts provide detailed forecasts for the next few years, and beyond that Simply Wall St extrapolates the trend to build a longer term view. Under this 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity model, QUALCOMM’s annual Free Cash Flow is projected to rise to roughly $18.4 billion by 2030, with growth gradually slowing as the business matures. Adding up and discounting all of those projected cash flows results in an estimated intrinsic value of about $204.82 per share.
Compared to the recent share price around $174.81, the DCF suggests QUALCOMM is trading at roughly a 14.6% discount to its estimated fair value. This points to potential upside if the cash flow trajectory plays out as expected.
For profitable businesses like QUALCOMM, the Price to Earnings ratio is a useful way to judge value because it directly links what investors pay today to the earnings the company is already generating. A higher PE can be justified when investors expect faster, more reliable earnings growth, while companies with slower growth or higher risk typically deserve a lower, more conservative multiple.
QUALCOMM currently trades on a PE of about 33.7x, which is below the broader Semiconductor industry average of roughly 38.0x and far below the peer group average near 76.4x. To go a step further, Simply Wall St calculates a proprietary Fair Ratio of around 33.3x for QUALCOMM. This is the PE level that would be reasonable given its specific earnings growth profile, margins, industry positioning, size and risk characteristics.
Because the Fair Ratio folds in these company specific drivers, it offers a more tailored benchmark than simple peer or industry comparisons. With QUALCOMM’s actual PE of 33.7x sitting very close to the Fair Ratio of 33.3x, the market appears to be pricing the stock broadly in line with its fundamentals.
Earlier we mentioned that there is an even better way to understand valuation, so let us introduce you to Narratives, a simple way to connect your view of QUALCOMM’s future with a concrete financial forecast and fair value estimate. A Narrative is the story you believe about the company, translated into explicit assumptions for future revenue, earnings and margins, which then roll up into a Fair Value you can compare to today’s share price. On Simply Wall St’s Community page, millions of investors can create and explore these Narratives in an accessible, guided workflow that updates dynamically as new earnings, news or guidance come in. Narratives turn abstract opinions such as strong AI growth or rising competitive risk into numbers you can act on, helping you decide whether QUALCOMM looks like a buy, hold or sell when you compare your Fair Value to the current market price. For example, one QUALCOMM Narrative might assume robust Edge AI and automotive momentum and arrive at a Fair Value near $300 per share. In contrast, a more cautious Narrative, focused on competition and regulatory risk, could land closer to $140 to $191 per share instead.
NasdaqGS:QCOM Community Fair Values as at Dec 2025
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
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