Qualcomm CEO pockets 15% pay rise as profits fall 45%
Carly PageFri 23 Jan 2026 // 11:43 UTC
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon saw his pay packet swell to $29.7 million in fiscal 2025, up from $25.91 million the year before, even as Qualcomm's full-year net income fell 45 percent.
According to the chip giant's latest proxy filing [PDF], Amon's compensation for the year comprised a $1.35 million base salary, $24.16 million in stock awards, $3.19 million in non-equity incentives, and just over $1 million in other compensation.
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Salary itself was unchanged year-on-year, with the 15 percent uplift driven almost entirely by equity and incentive pay.
The bump came in a year when Qualcomm reported full-year revenue of $44.3 billion, up 14 percent, but net income plunged 45 percent to $5.5 billion after the company booked a hefty non-cash tax charge tied to changes in US tax law. In other words, sales were up, profits went backwards, and executive pay kept climbing anyway.
Amon was not the only Qualcomm exec enjoying a healthy payday. CFO and COO Akash Palkhiwala took home $13.14 million in total compensation, while EVP and president Alexander Rogers earned $9.7 million. CTO Baaziz Achor received $9.46 million.
By contrast, Qualcomm calculated the annual total compensation of its median employee at $101,639, putting Amon's pay at roughly 292 times that figure.
Operationally, 2025 gave Qualcomm enough positives to keep investors upbeat. Fourth-quarter revenue climbed to $11.27 billion, up 10 percent year-on-year, driven in part by record quarterly automotive chip sales of $1.1 billion. Amon described that milestone as evidence that Qualcomm is now a serious player in a market long dominated by traditional automotive suppliers.
Amon also used the company's earnings call to flesh out plans to cautiously push Qualcomm into the datacenter. He confirmed the company is developing both a system-on-chip and an accelerator "card" for AI inference workloads, arguing that datacenter growth is shifting away from energy-hungry training toward more efficient inference at scale.
"AI datacenter growth is moving from training to dedicated inference workloads, and this trend is expected to accelerate," Amon told analysts, while stressing that Qualcomm does not expect "material" datacenter revenue until 2027.
Not all of Qualcomm's optimism rests on AI. Amon struck a bullish note on the company's PC chips, saying there is still room for growth, and pointed to continued strength in modems and communications silicon, even after Apple opted to build its own modems rather than continue buying from Qualcomm.
He also went out of his way to mention Qualcomm's relationship with Samsung, noting the company expects to supply around 75 percent of the processors used in the Galaxy S26. That comment came shortly after the Korean giant signaled it wants to strengthen its own high-end smartphone processors following its decision to rely exclusively on Qualcomm chips in the Galaxy S25.
As ever, shareholders will get a non-binding say-on-pay vote at Qualcomm's annual meeting. Whether they view a near-$30 million CEO payday as well-earned in a year when profits fell sharply, and datacenter revenues remain a promise rather than a reality, is likely to be one of the more closely watched signals to come out of the meeting. ®
theregister.com |
