Major ClientsThin moat

Qualcomm (QCOM) — moat facet

Three customers each above a tenth, forty-six percent of revenue headquartered in China, and the largest name is leaving.

Qualcomm sells to about a dozen companies that matter, and names three of them in its own filing.

Largest-customer concentration across the collection (%)67%CoreWeave42%Arista (top two)30%+ floorQualcomm(three named)36%Nvidia (top two)31%VeriSignQualcomm is the only one that names the customers. The 30% is a disclosed floor, not the figure.
Three above a tenth, and the largest is leaving.

The disclosure is unusually direct for a semiconductor company: in fiscal 2025, revenues from Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi each comprised 10% or more of consolidated revenues.1 Three customers, each above a tenth, in a business with $44.3 billion of revenue. Add the rest of the Chinese handset industry and the concentration by geography is starker still: China including Hong Kong was $20.3 billion, 46% of everything, against the United States at 24% and South Korea at 21%.2

What makes this page different from every other customer-concentration story in this collection is that Qualcomm has two entirely different relationships with the same names. Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi buy chips from QCT. They also license patents from QTL — and the licence is owed on the handset, not on the part, so a customer that stops buying silicon keeps paying the royalty.3 Losing a customer here is not binary. It is a downgrade from a high-revenue relationship to a very high-margin small one.

The company is candid about the pricing consequence. Its own risk language notes that share concentration among a few companies, and the corresponding purchasing power of those companies, may result in lower prices for its products.4 The most specific instance is disclosed in the same paragraph: Apple purchases MDM — thin modem — products, which do not include the integrated application processor and which carry lower revenue and margin. The largest customer had negotiated itself into the least profitable version of the relationship years before it started leaving it.

And it is leaving. Handset revenue fell 20% year over year to $5.09 billion in the June 2026 quarter, and Apple-related revenue was guided to fall roughly 50% between the September and December quarters.5

The rating is thin, and narrowing. The concentration is extreme, the largest name is departing, 46% of the revenue answers to a single government's industrial policy, and the only thing standing between all of that and the profit line is a licensing business that has been flat for three years.

Moat trajectory: Narrowing

Three customers each above a tenth, the largest guided to halve its revenue in a quarter, and the China share rising from 37% to 46%. Every measure of this concentration has moved the wrong way.

The number that tests this moat
Reported
Customers at 10% or more of revenue
3 in fiscal 2025 (Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi)

Qualcomm names its largest customers, and Apple is reducing its purchases. The count falling to two would mark Apple's departure; a new name joining would show the base broadening.

Source: Qualcomm Form 10-K, FY2025 ↗
Dig deeper
DIG DEEPER 01
Three Customers, Each More Than a Tenth
Most companies disclose an unnamed percentage. Qualcomm names Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi, because in mobile there is no point pretending.
DIG DEEPER 02
Apple Bought the Cheapest Part, and Is Now Building It
The largest customer had already negotiated itself into the least profitable version of the relationship before it began leaving it.
DIG DEEPER 03
Forty-Six Percent Answers to Beijing
Four separate things can end this revenue and none of them is a decision by any of the customers.
DIG DEEPER 04
The Licensees Who Are Not Customers
Losing a chip buyer here converts a thirty-percent-margin relationship into a seventy-two-percent one — which softens the loss and cannot replace it.
References
  1. ReportedThe disclosure is unusually direct for a semiconductor company: in fiscal 2025, revenues from Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi each comprised 10% or more of consolidated revenues.
    Qualcomm Incorporated, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 28 September 2025 (SEC, CIK 804328) — Item 1, Business, and the revenue-concentration and geographic disclosures. Qualcomm operates through QCT (semiconductors) and QTL (licensing), with QSI making strategic investments. QTL grants licences to portions of a patent portfolio including rights essential to and/or useful in the manufacture and sale of certain wireless products. In fiscal 2025 revenues from Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi each comprised 10% or more of consolidated revenues. Revenues by country, reported by customer or licensee headquarters: China including Hong Kong $20,340M (46%), United States $10,515M (24%), South Korea $9,542M (21%), other foreign $3,887M (9%), total $44,284M; the equivalent 2023 figures were $13,386M (37%), $10,503M (29%), $8,075M (23%) and $3,856M (11%). Approximately 52,000 full-time, part-time and temporary workers at 28 September 2025, in over 200 locations in 38 countries, with a voluntary turnover rate around 6%. Named registry and semiconductor competitors and the risk factors relating to customer vertical integration are set out in the same Item. — FY2025 · publ. 2025-11-05 · source ↗
  2. ReportedAdd the rest of the Chinese handset industry and the concentration by geography is starker still: China including Hong Kong was $20.3 billion, 46% of everything, against the United States at 24% and South Korea at 21%.
    Qualcomm Incorporated, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 28 September 2025 (SEC, CIK 804328) — Item 1, Business, and the revenue-concentration and geographic disclosures. Qualcomm operates through QCT (semiconductors) and QTL (licensing), with QSI making strategic investments. QTL grants licences to portions of a patent portfolio including rights essential to and/or useful in the manufacture and sale of certain wireless products. In fiscal 2025 revenues from Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi each comprised 10% or more of consolidated revenues. Revenues by country, reported by customer or licensee headquarters: China including Hong Kong $20,340M (46%), United States $10,515M (24%), South Korea $9,542M (21%), other foreign $3,887M (9%), total $44,284M; the equivalent 2023 figures were $13,386M (37%), $10,503M (29%), $8,075M (23%) and $3,856M (11%). Approximately 52,000 full-time, part-time and temporary workers at 28 September 2025, in over 200 locations in 38 countries, with a voluntary turnover rate around 6%. Named registry and semiconductor competitors and the risk factors relating to customer vertical integration are set out in the same Item. — FY2025 · publ. 2025-11-05 · source ↗
  3. ReportedThey also license patents from QTL — and the licence is owed on the handset, not on the part, so a customer that stops buying silicon keeps paying the royalty.
    Qualcomm Incorporated, Form 10-K FY2025 — Item 7, Management's Discussion and Analysis, and the reportable-segment note. QCT revenues $38,367M (2024 $33,196M, 2023 $30,382M) with EBT of $11,670M ($9,527M, $7,924M) at 30% of revenues (29%, 26%); QCT revenue streams handsets $27,793M ($24,863M, $22,570M), automotive $3,957M ($2,910M, $1,872M) and IoT $6,617M ($5,423M, $5,940M). QTL revenues $5,582M ($5,572M, $5,306M) against total costs and expenses of $1,539M ($1,545M, $1,678M), for EBT of $4,043M ($4,027M, $3,628M) — 72% of revenues in each of the three years. Reportable-segment revenues $43,949M, $38,786M and $35,716M against consolidated revenues of $44,284M, $38,962M and $35,820M. During the second quarter of fiscal 2025 Qualcomm executed final agreements for new long-term licensing arrangements. — FY2025 · publ. 2025-11-05 · source ↗
  4. ReportedIts own risk language notes that share concentration among a few companies, and the corresponding purchasing power of those companies, may result in lower prices for its products.
    Qualcomm Incorporated, Form 10-K FY2025 — Item 1A, Risk Factors. Market-share concentration among a few companies, and the corresponding purchasing power of these companies, may result in lower prices for Qualcomm's products, which could adversely affect revenues and margins. Apple purchases Qualcomm's MDM (thin modem) products, which do not include its integrated application processor technology and which have lower revenue and margin contributions than the combined modem and application processor products; to the extent Apple devices using MDM products take share from customers using the combined products, revenues and margins would be adversely affected. The filing also carries risk factors on customers vertically integrating by developing their own integrated circuit products, on dependence on key personnel, and on the consequences of indebtedness. — FY2025 · publ. 2025-11-05 · source ↗
  5. ReportedHandset revenue fell 20% year over year to $5.09 billion in the June 2026 quarter, and Apple-related revenue was guided to fall roughly 50% between the September and December quarters.
    Coverage of Qualcomm's third-quarter fiscal 2026 results, July 2026 — revenue of $9.9 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.21, meeting the high end of revenue guidance and short of consensus on earnings. QCT handset revenue of $5.09 billion declined 20% year over year on industry-wide memory supply constraints, higher input costs affecting device pricing and demand, and inventory adjustments at major OEMs; automotive revenue of $1.59 billion rose 61% and IoT of $1.83 billion rose 9%. Management said a sharper-than-expected reduction in Apple modem-related sales contributed to a lighter fourth-quarter outlook, with Apple-related revenues expected to fall by approximately 50% between the September and December quarters, and doubled the fiscal 2029 non-handset revenue target to $40 billion. Fourth-quarter guidance was $9.7-10.5 billion of revenue and $2.05-2.25 of non-GAAP diluted EPS, both below consensus near $10.02 billion and $2.36. — Q3 FY2026 · publ. 2026-07-30 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 23, 2026