Market Update (NASDAQ:QCOM): Qualcomm Retains Lion’s Share Of LTE Baseband Market; Further Gains Expected In 2016

[at Forbes] – According to ABI Research, leading chipset maker Qualcomm remained a leader in the LTE baseband chipsets in 2015. The company held a massive 65% of the LTE baseband chipset market in the year. LTE (Long Term Evolution), commonly marketed as 4G LTE, is one of the latest standards for wireless Read more on this. QUALCOMM Incorporated (QCOM) , with a current value of $75.12B, opened this morning at $50.00. During the trading session, QCOM traded between $49.73 to $50.29 with a trailing 52-week range being $42.24 to $74.09. QCOM shares are currently priced at 12.30x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively inexpensive compared to the industry ’s 13.90x earnings multiple. And for passive income investors, the company pays shareholders $1.92 per share annually in dividends, yielding 3.89%. Consensus earnings for the current quarter by the 26 sell-side analysts covering the stock is an estimate of $0.96 per share, which would be $0.44 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.05 sequential decrease. Furthermore, our analysis shows the full-year EPS estimate to be $4.10, which would be a $0.56 worse when compared to the last year’s annual results. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $5.33 Billion. If realized, that would be a 22.64% decrease over the year-ago quarter. More recently, Bernstein upgraded QCOM from Mkt Perform to Outperform (Feb 16, 2016). Previously, Susquehanna upgraded QCOM from Neutral to Positive. The average price target for QCOM shares by the analysts covering the stock is $57.64, which is 15.28% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NASDAQ:QCOM) Similar Articles: Stock Update (NASDAQ:QCOM): Qualcomm Schedules First Quarter Fiscal 2016 Earnings Release and Conference Call Market Update (NASDAQ:QCOM): Qualcomm (QCOM) Stock Gains on Chinese Patent License Deal Market Update: Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) – Apple Continues to Gobble Mobile Share, Says Canaccord; Better Luck for Qualcomm in 2016