Good morning. Qualcomm has long been a giant in building chips for mobile phones, known as Snapdragon processors. The Fortune 500 company is taking that chip technology and applying it to other industries that are going through an inflection point, according to Qualcomm’s CFO and COO Akash Palkhiwala.
Qualcomm anticipates a total addressable market of approximately $900 billion by 2030, according to Palkhiwala, who said the company is pursuing a diversification strategy that goes beyond mobile into automotive, personal computing (including PCs), industrial devices, and extended reality (XR) industries. “We’re building new muscles,” Palkhiwala told me.
An example? Palkhiwala pointed to the evolution of PCs. Following the onset of the pandemic, he said, PCs have become communication devices, rather than just used for productivity. Qualcomm has core strengths in power-efficient computing and connectivity, he explained. Another area the company prioritizes is on-device AI processing, which addresses demands for data security, Palkhiwala said.
Qualcomm has become a credible rival to traditional PC processor companies like Intel and AMD—especially amid the AI boom. Using the ARM architecture that is ubiquitous in the mobile world, Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X chipsets can be found in many of the “AI PCs” that manufacturers started selling in recent months.
I asked Palkhiwala about Qualcomm’s perspective on M&A amid reports that the company is considering a takeover of Intel. He pointed to Qualcomm’s diversification plan. “Anything that helps me accelerate that plan is of interest to me,” he said.
Palkhiwala also noted that Qualcomm's consistent M&A strategy has been prioritizing smaller technology acquisitions over the last year and a half to bring in talent and AI technologies which get integrated into the company's portfolio, he said. “We have not done large acquisitions,” he said. “Of course, from time to time we look at it, but we've chosen not to pursue it, so far.”
Palkhiwala first joined Qualcomm in 2001. Over the years, he’s held several finance leadership roles including treasurer, financial planning and analysis, and corporate development. He became CFO in 2019 and took on the additional role of COO in January.
In his COO capacity, he’s responsible for the sales, business development, and government relations teams globally. In most organizations, there has been a traditional conflict between finance and sales. So Palkhiwala sometimes must decide when it’s best to wear his COO or CFO hat, he said. But this question he asks himself puts everything into perspective: What is the right decision for Qualcomm?
“If I make every decision, or every judgment based on that framework, then I think it's fine,” he said.
I also asked Palkhiwala what he does for fun when he’s not in the C-suite wearing two hats. “I'm a big Bollywood fan,” he told me. And tennis is at the top of his list, too.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
