Qualcomm ($QCOM) investors might have a little bit to sweat, with one of the company's biggest supply chain partners - Apple ($AAPL) - making M&A moves to take in-house chips that they once used to buy. But it's going to be a long time before any problems come home to roost - and, likely, not in this quarter's earnings report.
Qualcomm job postings are just the beginning of why investors should be excited when the company reports earnings Wednesday July 31 - analysts tracked by Zacks Investment Research are looking for EPS of $0.65, down from most of the company's recent earnings reports.
CNBC reported, when Apple sealed its $1 billion deal with Intel to buy modem components from the latter that will be used in smartphone production, that the smartphone maker's deal with Qualcomm will still reach years into the future - so, right now, at least, Qualcomm has a dependable source of revenue to support all these new job postings it has added.
It has been a turbulent year for Qualcomm - in what has been, needless to say, a turbulent year for top technology companies - the company watched shares rise more than 30% from the beginning of the year - but, the stock remains off its highs in 2019. A big beat when it announces earnings could send stock to all-time highs.
Finally, a look at headcount - which rose nearly 5% during the quarter, according to our LinkedIn ($MSFT) Employee Headcount, derived from how many people on the job-seeker's social network identify with a given brand as their current place of employment. Once again - alternative data is pointing in the right direction for Qualcomm - regardless of what the hardware pundits say.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.