Daiwa Just Upgraded Qualcomm to Outperform: $225 Price Target Bets on Data Center AI Pivot
Daiwa’s $225 price target on Qualcomm exposes how the market still prices the chipmaker like a fading smartphone vendor while its AI data-center bets accelerate.
Daiwa upgraded Qualcomm to Outperform on May 8 and lifted its price target from $140 to $225, the most aggressive single-firm revision this year. Analyst Louis Miscioscia argues the company is no longer just a handset supplier but an emerging participant in AI infrastructure, a shift the broader market has yet to fully price in.
Qualcomm’s Q2 FY2026 revenue fell 3 percent year-over-year to $10.599 billion, yet non-GAAP EPS of $2.65 beat expectations. Handset revenue dropped 13 percent amid memory constraints, but automotive surged 38 percent to a record $1.326 billion. CEO Cristiano Amon stated that “a leading hyperscaler custom silicon engagement is on track for initial shipments later this calendar year.”
The upgrade rests on Arm-based AI inference trends already lifting Arm Holdings and Intel. As workloads shift from NVIDIA-dominated training to inference, Miscioscia sees Qualcomm’s low semiconductor valuation and its June 24 Investor Day as catalysts. Additional hyperscaler design wins would validate the pivot.
At roughly $216.63, Qualcomm trades at 22 times earnings, well below NVIDIA’s 43x multiple while AMD has gained 105 percent year-to-date. That gap explains the call: if the data-center story gains traction, the historic discount could narrow the way other chip stocks have this year.
The bull case hinges on a multi-vector strategy spanning automotive, IoT, data center, and handsets, bolstered by the Alphawave Semi acquisition. Bears correctly note that handsets still dominate economics and that server silicon must compete against NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, and hyperscaler in-house silicon.
Qualcomm authorized a $20 billion buyback and maintains its $0.89 quarterly dividend, yet the real test remains whether management can quantify the data-center opportunity at the upcoming investor day. Until then, the upgrade puts the stock back on watch lists even as execution risks stay real.
Original reporting: 24/7 Wall St.
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