Alphabet discloses $548M Qualcomm stake as chip stocks bounce

Alphabet just made a very expensive friend even closer. The Google parent disclosed in a Friday SEC filing that it picked up roughly 3 million Qualcomm shares in the third quarter, a stake worth nearly $548 million.

Investors liked the vote of confidence. Qualcomm shares climbed 2.77% in premarket trading at 8:08 am ET, changing hands at $161.09, while Alphabet slipped 0.15% to $282.16 a share. The two companies have been partners for years, and Alphabet's timing lands right as Qualcomm pushes hard into data centers to grab a slice of the AI infrastructure boom.

The chipmaker could use the lift. Qualcomm's stock nosedived 13.24% on Thursday to $150.26 after it reported full-year declines across revenue, net income, earnings per share and its QCT semiconductor division.

The quarterly picture was more mixed. Fiscal fourth-quarter revenue fell 8% from a year earlier, landing at $10.3 billion, though it still beat analyst estimates. Net income and diluted EPS both soared 140% year over year, hitting $1.2 billion and $1.17, while the QCT segment dropped 8% to $9.01 billion. For the full fiscal year, revenue slipped 2% and now sits at $43.2 billion, net income fell 15% to $11.3 billion and EPS declined 12% to $10.54, with QCT down 3% at $37.2 billion.

Qualcomm has some loud fans outside Alphabet. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk praised the company's technology as «excellent» after inking a deal for Starlink Mobile's nationwide 5G network to run on Qualcomm's Dragonwing cellular infrastructure platforms, saying the arrangement ensures «at least there will be one network with good signal everywhere.»

The wider chip sector was bouncing Friday, with the Nasdaq 100 up almost 2% in premarket trading after Thursday's brutal selloff over fears of tighter AI regulation following Democrats flipping Congress. Micron led the charge with a 9.19% jump, AMD added 8.49% and Arm climbed 7.28%.