Qualcomm delivered quarterly results that beatWall Street's expectations on Wednesday but its shares fell in after-hours trading on guidance that trailed expectations.
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Qualcomm
The company , which makes chips used in cellphones and other wireless devices, posted fiscal second-quarter earnings excluding items of$1.01 per share, up from 86 cents a share in the year-earlier period.
Revenue was $4.94 billion, a 28 percent increase from $3.87 billion a year ago.
Analysts had expected the company to report earnings excluding items of 96 cents a share on $4.84 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
After the earnings announcement, the company's shares fell 6percent in trading after the closing bell. (Click here to get after-hour quotes for Qualcomm.)
In the third quarter, the company expects to earn 83 cents to 89 cents a share on revenue of $4.45 to $4.85 billion. Analysts are expecting 83 to 99 cents a share on revenue of $4.61 to $5.09 billion.
Since the company reported quarterly revenue and earnings that were ahead of analysts' expectations, investors were perplexed over why the company was not able to raise its financial targets for the full year.
Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said the company's forecast for third-quarter chip shipments of 144 million to 152 million was below his expectation for 157 million. He said that many on Wall Street had hoped it would raise financial targets for 2012.
"People were bulled up into the quarter," said Rasgon. "What I don't know is if this (shortfall) is a sign of the market slowdown, an inventory build up or 28-nanometer supply constraints."
San Diego-based Qualcomm kept its forecast for full-year revenue but raised the high end of its earnings per share forecast to a range of $3.61 to 3.76 from its previous range of $3.55 to $3.75.
Trading volume for Qualcomm stock was heavy on Wednesday. More than 1.6 times the daily average number of shares were traded.
During the previous quarter, the company beat earnings and revenue expectations and also raised its financial targets for full-year 2012 on strong demand for its wireless chips.