Qualcomm, Apple'ın Modem İşini Kaybetti. Amazon az önce 60 milyar $ değerinde bir kaçış rotası sundu.

Qualcomm Lost Apple’s Modem Business. Amazon Just Offered a $60 Billion Escape Route.

Omor Ibne Ehsan

Sat, September 12, 2026 at 4:37 PM GMT+3 5 min read

Quick Read

• Apple's modem exit slashes QCOM's Apple revenue ~50% quarter-over-quarter, while Amazon's AI data center deal targets $5B in replacement revenue by fiscal 2027.

• Qualcomm enters a crowded inference market where NVIDIA, Broadcom, Marvell, and AMD already ship custom silicon to hyperscalers at volume.

• Amazon's $4B warrants only pay if milestones are hit, and 27 analysts cut fiscal 2027 EPS estimates against just three upgrades in 30 days.

• Just released. Our analysts combed the entire stock market and named the ten best stocks to buy right now, and Apple didn't make the cut. Enter your email to see the names that beat AAPL. The report is free. Enter your email and see if any of your stocks made the cut.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is replacing Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) modems with in-house silicon, threatening one of Qualcomm's most valuable franchises. On the fiscal third-quarter call, management said its share of upcoming iPhone launches would be "materially lower" than the prior 20% estimate, with Apple product revenue expected to fall roughly 50% from the September-to-December quarter.

Into that gap walks Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). Qualcomm announced a multi-generational product collaboration with Amazon on September 8, 2026, to build next-generation AI data center infrastructure, and warrants issued to Amazon could be worth about $4 billion if commercial milestones are reached. That number is a performance-contingent ceiling, distinct from cash paid or revenue booked. Qualcomm trades near $176.40 with a market capitalization around $188.4 billion, and the question is whether this second door is load-bearing.

What Qualcomm Is Selling

Qualcomm is entering the data center with inference-oriented custom silicon, high-bandwidth compute AI accelerators, CPUs, and optical connectivity, not training accelerators competing head-on with NVIDIA. Inference runs trained models in production, a different competition from training, with different buying criteria and margins.

Free Report, Just Released

Why Didn't AAPL Make The Top 10 List?

24/7 Wall St has helped investors make money for over two decades, and our top analysts just finished ranking the definitive Top 10 Stocks To Buy Now. Not the ten biggest companies. Not the ten everyone is arguing about. The ten best stocks to buy right now.

And AAPL didn't make the cut!

The report is free, and you can see why we think each stock is a top investment today.

Enter Your Email and See the Ten →

CEO Cristiano Amon said on the Q3 call that Qualcomm has two custom silicon engagements with "global scale hyperscalers," both with purchase orders in hand and wafer production started. Initial Amazon-related revenue is expected in the December quarter, and Qualcomm targets $5 billion in data center revenue in fiscal 2027, scaling to $15 billion by fiscal 2029.

The broader diversification target is $40 billion in non-handset revenue by fiscal 2029, with growth accelerating from 24% in fiscal 2026 to greater than 60% in fiscal 2027. Management expects that fiscal 2027 non-handset growth will "replace the entire Apple product revenue within the year."

Margins, Competitors, and the Warrant Overhang

The catch is mix. Amon told analysts the initial data center ramp will be "significantly lower" margin than baseline, trimming QCT weighted-average gross margin by 1.5 to 2%. Qualcomm's consolidated gross margin sits near 55.4% today.

Competition is dense. NVIDIA dominates training, Broadcom and Marvell already ship custom ASICs and optics to hyperscalers at volume, and AMD is scaling MI-series accelerators. Qualcomm's differentiators are power efficiency inherited from mobile, an open software stack anchored by the completed Modular acquisition, and Alphawave-derived SerDes IP for connectivity.

The warrants dilute existing holders only if Amazon hits milestones, meaning Amazon holds the optionality while Qualcomm carries execution risk. Analyst estimate revisions tell the near-term story: 27 downward EPS revisions for fiscal 2027 against three upward in the trailing 30 days.

Is QCOM Stock a Buy?

QCOM is up 13.52% over one year and trades at a forward P/E of 17x, with an analyst target of $193.90. The Amazon headline is real, but the revenue is not yet booked, and margins on that revenue will compress the mix.

Against Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) and Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL), Qualcomm is arriving late, with silicon customers still wanting to see it in production. Automotive gives real ballast, with 61% year-over-year growth and an updated $7 billion exit-run rate.

The setup looks balanced. The Apple runoff and margin compression are certain; the Amazon offset depends on milestones not yet demonstrated on silicon, and investors should watch December-quarter data center revenue, HBC Gen 1 performance data, and pricing pass-through into gross margin before paying up.

Got $1,000? Before You Buy AAPL, Read This

If you have cash sitting in your account right now, give this two minutes. After more than two decades of helping investors beat the market, our top analysts at 24/7 Wall St. put together a definitive report on the Top 10 Stocks To Buy Today. And AAPL wasn't one of them.

They combed the entire market. It's not 10 ideas, not 10 stocks everyone is talking about, it's what their research points to as the 10 best stocks to buy right now, and it's free. Read more here and see which stocks made the list -->>

Contact editorial@247wallst.com for any questions or corrections.