Qualcomm expects its revenues in the Internet of Things segment to surpass $1 billion over the course of this year, the company said Thursday. The San Diego, California-based chipmaker made the prediction as part of a wider pledge to continue supporting IoT and investing in related industries, proclaiming it’s now indirectly reaching over 9,000 customers in the field thanks to its technologies. That figure represents an increase of almost 1,900-percent compared to 2014, with the improvement being helped by over two dozen distributors around the world.
Qualcomm is now looking to build on its double-digit growth in the IoT sector moving forward and is extremely optimistic about the whole endeavor, especially as it’s describing it as a largely risk-free initiative; the majority of the company’s IoT solutions are based on its previous advancements and investments in mobile research and development which ended up being repurposed for the needs of less demanding IoT hardware. The firm has been pursuing a similar strategy with its Snapdragon Wear series of chipsets aimed at smartwatches and while its success in the area has been limited, that’s assumed to be largely because the wearable category as a whole still hasn’t taken off like industry analysts initially expected. Qualcomm believes the IoT will be a different story altogether and maintain its momentum much more effectively, especially as the technologies in the emerging field are bound to be embraced by enterprises.
The company’s Thursday pledge is likely only the beginning of its highly publicly expressed optimism about its long-term prospects that investors will need to hear after its historic bid for Dutch NFC pioneer and chipmaker NXP Semiconductors fell apart due to a lack of approval from China. The $44 billion deal was meant to provide Qualcomm with a stronger foothold in a number of promising sectors such as automotive communications and mobile payment but with that tie-up now being out of the realm of possibility, the firm will need to continue its quest for growth on its own with a large focus on 5G and related technologies, IoT included.