Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) held its 2026 annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, and Chairman Mark McLaughlin opened the session by introducing board candidates and members of the executive team, including Chairman and CEO Cristiano Amon and Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer Akash Palkhiwala. McLaughlin also recognized two outgoing directors: Neil Smit, who is retiring after nearly eight years on the board, and Chris Young, who is leaving to focus on his role as CEO of Vertex Incorporated.
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Ann Chaplin reviewed procedural issues, including confirmation that a quorum was present and that Peter Descovich had been appointed inspector of elections. Shareholders considered seven proposals and management reported preliminary results showing that all items recommended by the board were approved, while two shareholder proposals were not.
Director elections: Shareholders elected the 11 nominated directors: Sylvia Acevedo, Cristiano Amon, Mark Fields, Jeff Henderson, Zico Kolter, Ann Livermore, Mark McLaughlin, Jamie Miller, Marie Myers, Irene Rosenfeld and Jean-Pascal Tricoire.
Auditor Ratification: Shareholders confirmed PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as independent public accountants for the fiscal year ending September 27, 2026.
Executive Compensation: Shareholders approved the non-binding “say on pay” advisory proposal.
Payment frequency: Shareholders supported holding future votes on pay on an annual basis.
Action plan: Shareholders approved the amended and restated long-term incentive plan for 2023, which includes an increase in stock reserves by 24 million shares.
Shareholder proposals: Both shareholder proposals were not approved.
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Chaplin said final voting results would be reported within four business days in a Form 8-K filed with the SEC and posted on the company’s website.
In the sixth proposal, shareholder proponent John Chevedden asked the company to amend the governing documents to allow holders of a combined 10% of outstanding common stock to call a special meeting of shareholders. Chevedden argued that Qualcomm’s existing provisions (citing a threshold of “up to 25%” and a requirement that shares be held for a “full rolling year” to participate) functioned as “poison pills” that effectively prevent shareholders from calling special meetings.
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Proposal Seven was presented through a pre-recorded statement from Todd Russ, chairman of the board of investors for the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust. Russ requested reports on how the company manages “China risk,” describing China as a “huge portion of revenue” and referencing concerns raised in meetings with the company about a lack of tracking China-specific operating costs, assets or supply chain details. Russ characterized the proposal as “modest, reasonable and apolitical” and said he sought transparency rather than disengagement from China.
In a business update, Amon said Qualcomm’s strategy is based on anticipating change, investing early in new technologies and executing with discipline. He described the company as a “leader in connected computing” with capabilities spanning high-performance, low-power computing, advanced connectivity and artificial intelligence processing. Amon said Qualcomm’s technologies scale from “less than 2 milliwatts” in consumer electronics to “2,000 watts” in next-generation data centers.
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Amon said the company is “successfully expanding beyond phones” into personal AI and wearables, PCs, automotive, edge networking and industrial IoT, and is “extending this focus to advanced robotics and the data center.”
In phones, Amon said Snapdragon platforms “continue to set the pace for mobile innovation,” noting that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 features “the fastest mobile CPU ever,” along with improved NPU and GPU capabilities. It said the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 support premium smartphones and are seeing “strong global adoption in OEM flagship designs.”
He also emphasized “personal AI” devices, such as smart glasses and other wearable devices, and described “agent experiences” and continuous sensing requirements aligned with Qualcomm’s strengths in performance and energy efficiency. Amon said the company is working with “seven of the nine largest cloud companies in the world” and that Snapdragon is the platform of choice with “more than 40 devices in production or development,” and smart glasses will likely become the largest category.
In PCs, Amon highlighted the momentum of the Snapdragon In the automotive sector, he said Snapdragon digital chassis solutions have wide adoption among major OEMs and that the company’s digital cockpit platform is deployed in “75 million cars worldwide,” including best-selling vehicles from General Motors, Toyota and Mercedes. It also cited the launch of Snapdragon Ride Pilot, described as Qualcomm’s first full L2+ automated driving solution in its advanced self-driving software suite co-developed with BMW.
In edge networks, Amon cited demand for Wi-Fi 7 gateway platforms and the adoption of 5G fixed wireless access solutions, and said Qualcomm is investing in Wi-Fi 8, with consumer devices expected “already in summer 2026.” He highlighted Xiaomi’s launch of an AI gateway based on the Qualcomm Dragonwing and Pro A7 platform. In industrial and embedded IoT, he said Qualcomm expanded its offering and cited a variety of examples of customers using industrial-grade Dragonwing platforms.
Amon also said the company formally announced the entry into advanced robotics, describing Dragonwing IQ 10 series support spanning “advanced AMRs up to humanoids.” He said robotics underscores the importance of on-device AI processing, low-latency sensor fusion and energy efficiency.
In the data center, Amon said Qualcomm is focusing on AI inference accelerator cards and servers based on custom NPUs and SoCs, emphasizing inference workloads and an “innovative memory architecture” that provides “more than ten times greater effective memory bandwidth” with lower power consumption. He also said the company completed its acquisition of Alphawave Semi and is “encouraged by early customer traction” with hyperscalers, cloud service providers and sovereign AI projects.
During the Q&A, Amon reiterated Qualcomm’s goal of reaching $22 billion in combined QCT, automotive and IoT revenue by fiscal 2029. As for the data center, he said it is “not included” in that $22 billion and that Qualcomm expects the business to start becoming “financially material in fiscal 2027,” calling it a “multi-billion dollar opportunity.”
Regarding return on equity, management said Qualcomm returned approximately “100% of our free cash flow” in fiscal 2025 and is “on track to do so in fiscal 2026,” through a combination of dividends and buybacks. The company also said it announced a dividend increase of $0.03 and reiterated guidance that annual dividend increases are expected to be in the “low single digit range.”
Regarding 6G, Amon said that “6G is definitely coming” and that Qualcomm hopes to lead it as it has with previous wireless generations. He described 6G as enabling significant increases in uplink speeds for future AI-powered devices and said the network itself will become “an AI network,” including sensing capabilities and “the capabilities of creating a digital twin of everything,” which he framed as an opportunity that encompasses cellular technologies as well as data center and AI computing.
In his closing remarks, Amon said Qualcomm is evolving from a company focused on connectivity and mobile telephony to “a connected computing company for the age of intelligence” and said the company will continue to execute its strategy.
Qualcomm Incorporated is a global semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in San Diego, California. Founded in 1985, the company is known for its development of wireless technologies and for playing a central role in the evolution of digital cellular standards, including CDMA and subsequent generations of mobile standards. Qualcomm’s business combines the design and sale of semiconductor products with a patent licensing program for wireless technologies and related intellectual property.
The company’s product portfolio includes system-on-chip (SoC) platforms marketed under the Snapdragon brand, cellular modem and RF front-end components, connectivity solutions for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and processors and platforms targeted at automotive, IoT, networking and edge computing applications.
The article “Qualcomm Shareholders Back Board, Stock Plan, CEO Amon Highlights AI, Robotics, Data Center Push” was originally published by MarketBeat.
