We derive a significant portion of our revenues from a small number of customers and licensees, and particularly from their sale of premium-tier handset devices, and we expect this trend to continue in the foreseeable future. The mobile industry is experiencing and may continue to experience concentration of device share among a few companies, particularly at the premium tier, contributing to this trend. Certain Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have increased and may continue to increase their device share in China and in certain regions outside of China, and we derive a significant portion of our revenues from a small number of these OEMs as well. See also “Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, Note 2. Composition of Certain Financial Statement Items - Concentrations.”
In addition, a number of our largest customers have developed, are developing or may develop their own integrated circuit products, or may choose our competitors’ integrated circuit products, which they have in the past utilized, currently utilize and may in the future utilize in some or all of their devices, rather than our products, which could significantly reduce the revenues we derive from these customers. See also the Risk Factor titled “Our business, particularly our semiconductor business, may suffer as a result of our customers vertically integrating (i.e., developing their own integrated circuit products).”
Further, political actions, including trade and/or national security protection policies (for example, tariffs and other controls on imports or exports), or other actions by governments, particularly the U.S. and Chinese governments, have in the past, currently are and could in the future limit or prevent us from transacting business with certain of our customers, limit, prevent or discourage those customers from transacting business with us, or make it more expensive to do so, any of which could also significantly reduce the revenues we derive from these customers. See also the Risk Factor titled “A significant portion of our business is concentrated in China, and the risks of such concentration are exacerbated by U.S./China trade and national security tensions.”
The loss of any one of our significant customers, a reduction in the purchases of our products by any of these customers or the cancellation of significant purchases by any of these customers, whether due to the use of their own integrated circuit products or our competitors’ integrated circuit products, government restrictions, a decline in global, regional or local economic conditions, a decline in consumer demand (or a shift in consumer demand away from new devices in favor of refurbished or secondhand devices) or otherwise, would reduce our revenues and could harm our ability to achieve or sustain expected results of operations. A delay of significant purchases, even if only temporary, would reduce our revenues in the period of the delay. Any such reduction in revenues would also impact our cash resources available for other purposes, such as research and development. In addition, the timing and size of purchases by our significant customers may be impacted by the timing of such customers’ new or next generation product introductions, over which we have no control, and the timing and success of such introductions may cause our revenues and results of operations to fluctuate. We spend a significant amount of engineering and development time, funds and resources in understanding our key customers’ feedback and/or specifications and attempt to incorporate such input into our product launches and technologies. These efforts may not require or result in purchase commitments from such customers or we may have lower purchases from such customers than expected, and consequently, we may not achieve the anticipated revenues from these efforts, or these efforts may result in non-recoverable costs. Further, the concentration of device share among a few companies, and the corresponding purchasing power of these companies, may result in lower prices for our products, which could have an adverse effect on our revenues and margins.
Apple purchases our MDM (or thin modem) products, which do not include our integrated application processor technology, and which have lower revenue and margin contributions than our combined modem and application processor products. Consequently, to the extent Apple devices using our MDM products take share from our customers who purchase our integrated modem and application processor products, our revenues and margins may be negatively impacted. Additionally, we expect that Apple will increasingly use its own modem products, rather than our products, in its future devices, which will have a significant negative impact on our QCT revenues, results of operations and cash flows.
The mobile industry has also from time to time experienced declines in sales or slowing growth in the premium-tier device segment. A reduction in sales of premium-tier devices, a reduction in sales of our premium-tier integrated circuit products (which have a higher revenue and margin contribution than our lower-tier integrated circuit products), a shift in share away from OEMs that utilize our premium-tier products, or a shift in consumer demand in favor of refurbished or secondhand devices, would reduce our revenues and margins and may harm our ability to achieve or sustain expected financial results. Any such reduction in revenues would also impact our cash resources available for other purposes, such as research and development.
Further, while we derive a portion of our revenues from areas outside of mobile handsets, e.g., from industries such as automotive and IoT, certain product categories within those industries may in themselves be subject to high levels of customer concentration.
Although we have many licensees, we derive a significant portion of our licensing revenues from a limited number of such licensees, which includes a number of Chinese OEMs. In the event that one or more of our significant licensees fail to meet their reporting and payment obligations, or we are unable to renew or modify one or more of their license agreements under similar terms as their existing agreements, our revenues, results of operations and cash flows would be adversely impacted. Moreover, the success of our core licensing business depends in part on the ability of our licensees to continue to develop, introduce and deliver high-volume products that achieve and sustain customer acceptance. We do not have control over the product development, sales efforts or pricing of products by our licensees, and our licensees might not be successful in these efforts. Reductions in sales of our licensees’ products, or reductions in the average selling prices of such products without a sufficient increase in the volumes sold, would generally have an adverse effect on our licensing revenues.