Qualcomm shares jumped sharply after the company laid out fresh multi-year revenue targets and unveiled a partnership with Meta Platforms, the details of which appear tied to Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses and broader mixed-reality hardware roadmap. QCOM's fiscal 2025 revenue run-rate came in at $44.3B, up roughly 14% year-over-year, with a 12.5% net margin — solid growth, though net margins remain modest relative to fabless peers.

The Meta angle matters because it plugs QCOM into one of the fastest-growing hardware ecosystems outside of Apple — META posted $201B in FY2025 revenue growing 22% YoY with a 30% net margin, giving it ample budget to keep investing in AI hardware. A sustained silicon partnership would add a meaningful, diversified revenue stream for Qualcomm beyond its core Android handset business.

The bull case rests on QCOM's ongoing diversification away from handset dependency: automotive, IoT, and now XR/AI hardware partnerships could justify the higher multiple the market appears to be awarding. The bear case is that Qualcomm has made partnership announcements before that did not translate into durable incremental revenue, and the absence of margin expansion in the current print suggests operating leverage is not yet flowing through.

Key things to watch: the specific revenue contribution timeline from the Meta deal, any language on automotive and PC design wins in the next quarterly call, and whether QCOM can close the margin gap with peers like MediaTek or Broadcom as it scales new verticals. The stock's reaction suggests the market is pricing in execution — which leaves little room for guidance misses going forward.