On this episode of the Six Five Webcast: The 5G Factor, host Ron Westfall is joined by Olivier Blanchard. Together they dive into the latest advancements and strategic moves within the 5G ecosystem and bring their expert analysis to three significant developments that promise to reshape the landscape of mobile and satellite communications.
Their discussion covers:
- The impact of T-Mobile Starlink’s debut to a massive audience during Super Bowl 59, offering a unique blend of satellite and mobile technology to extend connectivity to Verizon and AT&T’s customers within the U.S. territories previously unserved by terrestrial networks.
- The significance of Nokia’s decision to appoint Intel’s AI and data center leader, as its new CEO, exploring how his expertise could drive AI-fueled innovation across Nokia’s product offerings, focusing on network automation, AI RAN, and data center fabrics.
- A review of Qualcomm’s announcement of record revenues for Q1 FY 2025, highlighting the contribution of premium-tier handsets and automotive sector growth to the company’s sixth consecutive quarter of record earnings, underlining Qualcomm’s successful strategy in diversifying its portfolio and expanding its global influence in the mobile ecosystem.
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Disclaimer: The Six Five Webcast: The 5G Factor is for information and entertainment purposes only. Over the course of this webcast, we may talk about companies that are publicly traded, and we may even reference that fact and their equity share price, but please do not take anything that we say as a recommendation about what you should do with your investment dollars. We are not investment advisors, and we ask that you do not treat us as such.
Transcript:
Ron Westfall: Hello and welcome everyone to The 5G Factor. I’m Ron Westfall, Research Director here at The Futurum Group, and I’m joined here today by my esteemed colleague, Olivier Blanchard, fellow Research Director and Practice Lead for AI Devices here at The Futurum Group. In fact, Olivier has been heading up our coverage of what’s going on with AI devices, and naturally, in today’s conversation, we’ll touch on that. And naturally, we have, I think, a lot of ground to cover here because there’s always something going on, especially in the lead up to Mobile World Congress 2025 the first week of March. And so with that, Olivier, welcome back. I know it’s been a week, and so good to see you. How are things coming along?
Olivier Blanchard: I can’t believe it’s only been a week. It feels like a month already. It’s been busy. Well, we’ve had a lot of reports and dashboards and intelligence products coming out, so it feels like the last week was about two or three weeks packed into five days, but yeah, it’s good.
Ron Westfall: I understand.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah.
Ron Westfall: No doubt. No, no, I think perception is key. It does seem like it.
Olivier Blanchard: Right, yeah.
Ron Westfall: And maybe this week, we’ll emulate that, but that’s good because that means the ecosystem, that certainly The 5G and mobile ecosystem, are having plenty of things going on that merit our attention and perspective, and yes, our friend AI is playing a role in it. However, let’s really focus on, I guess you could say, a mobile-centric announcement that came out during the Super Bowl, Super Bowl LIX, and during that momentous event, T-Mobile introduced T-Mobile Starlink to millions of football fans out there. In fact, this set a record, if I understand correctly. 126 million people tuned into the Super Bowl, and that’s including all the different platforms, and that’s why a Super Bowl viewing record was achieved, even though the game itself wasn’t exactly dramatic during the second half.
Now, back to T-Mobile Starlink, the important thing here, and that it’s in public data. It was developed naturally in partnership with Starlink, and it’s using satellite and mobile communication technology to help keep people connected. And why is that important? Because quite simply, there are more than 500,000 square miles, that’s a half-million, of the country that is here in the United States of America that are unreached by any carriers’ earthbound cell towers, and that equates to about the size of two Texases.
Now, I think also important about this announcement is it’s just not for T-Mobile customers to trial and test out. I think it’s in July that you have to start thinking about, “Okay, do I really want to include this?” And if you’re already a T-Mobile customer with specific 5G plans, you can pretty much add it on after your trial. Otherwise, you could add it on for specific fees. But also, Verizon and AT&T customers can also trial this. And I think this is a smart move by T-Mobile, because here is a way to really potentially garnish customers from your top two rivals in a way that is, well, obviously legally sanctioned, but also smooth marketing, certainly from my perspective. And other important takeaways here is that T-Mobile Starlink is using specially configured satellites with direct-to-cell capabilities, or direct-to-device, and that’s orbiting Earth about 200 miles up. They’re traveling at very rapid rates, 17,000 miles per hour, to be specific, to deliver these cell phone signals, and that includes text messages for now with picture messages with data and voice calls coming later. And that quite simply is filling a void that, again, earth cell towers can’t really address today.
And this is, I think a very important part of how do we get what can be called universal coverage to really assure a society without a digital divide because of connectivity capabilities that can’t be reached the recent past, but now that is changing. So that’s good news for everybody. It’s not just good news for T-Mobile, the mobile ecosystem, but really for society as a whole. And so with that kickoff, Olivier, from your perspective, what are some important takeaways and aspects to this announcement?
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah, well, first of all, it’s the mainstreaming of satellite or near, what’s the term, NTN, near-terrestrial networks?
Ron Westfall: Non-terrestrial, yes, yes, indeed.
Olivier Blanchard: I drew a blank just then. I was like, “I thought I knew this,” and it’s been a while since I’ve actually said the words, so I blanked out. No, but it’s further mainstreaming of these networks by obviously not needing a dedicated antenna, but being able to access them directly on your cell phone. So a couple of things for me. Obviously, it’s part of an evolution, I think, that we’ll see this becoming much more mainstream, much more ubiquitous in years to come. Two, it’s a proof of concept. I know that even I want to say two, three years ago, I was at a 3GPP conference, and NTN was a big discussion, but there was still some skepticism about why would people pay extra for this? Is it ever really going to be anything more than a commercial application for truckers or for ships at sea, things of that nature?
And now we’re starting to see that for anything else, just the convenience of it, the security or the sense of security that we might feel from knowing that we’re going to be connected from anywhere. You could be out camping somewhere where there’s no antenna cell reception, but you can still send distress messages, or like, “Hey, I’m okay,” messages to your loved ones, so you’re never completely isolated if you don’t want to be. And even just for everyday people who don’t necessarily travel cross-country or go into that that have connectivity issues, sometimes things happen, things fail, right? There could be a natural disaster, like the hurricane that hit the Southeast a few months ago, and that left us without internet or power for a while.
There could be fires in California, there could be an earthquake, whatever the reason, having that extra level of service that sort of bypasses terrestrial infrastructure might also be well worth the investment. And also, having the ability to turn it on and off at will, not necessarily always having it on at all times is not necessarily a bad option either. So I think this is good for Starlink, it’s good for T-Mobile. It’s a great differentiator for them for now. And it’s also good for consumers, and it’s also a market test. After the amount of exposure that T-Mobile had, and I thought that was obviously brilliant, traditional media isn’t dead, so that ad was really powerful. So now, let’s see how well they convert over the next six months.
Ron Westfall: Yeah, no, I think this is just a great way to start the flywheel, to your points, Olivier. The beta is free until July, and I admit I’ve signed up for the beta. And what’s, I think, important here is that T-Mobile’s Starlink will be included at no extra cost on Go5G Next plans with T-Mobile. So if you’re already on the T-Mobile network and you have that plan, well, what’s not to like? It’s a proverbial no-brainer. Also, yes, it’s important to consumers, but also business customers can also get the Starlink plan at no extra cost on Go5G Business Next, so this is really covering that additional base.
Yeah, I think that was something that’s important to underline about first responders. That is first responder agencies on T-Priority plans and other select rate plans can also definitely add the service. And what I think is also important here is that when it comes to the Verizon, AT&T customers, they can add it after the beta for $20 per month, if I understand that. Now, yes, they’re both also doing their own direct-to-device trials and so forth. So yeah, this is definitely going to intensify and pick up, but I think it’s a tribute to the innovation that’s gone on with the Starlink Constellation Network in enabling this, and we’ve seen it really prove a lifesaver in these natural disaster areas for the wildfires of Southern California, let alone places like the Ukraine-Russia campaign. So what’s very vital here is that this will be a game-changer as it becomes just that, more mainstream.
And to add to this, I think it’s important to note that also carriers, such as KDDI in Japan, Telstra in Australia, as well as Optus, as well as One NZ at the New Zealand, and Entel in Chile and Peru, and Rogers in Canada, and Kyivstar in Ukraine are also on the bandwagon for this. So that is working with Starlink in order to bring this broader universalized coverage, and that is to, again, eliminate what can be called dead zones. Nobody wants that because of just what we touched on. It could be emergency situations, unknown unknowns and so forth, and I think that’s something that will just be that, a feather in the cap for T-Mobile as it looks to advance this campaign.
Now with that, let’s turn to another important development that just popped up on the radar, and that is Nokia has named a new CEO, and basically, they picked Intel exec who is leading the AI and data center efforts, Justin Hotard. And that, I think from my perspective, is a smart move, and what I think is important here is one doesn’t have to be a data scientist to understand that this is also going to do specifically for Nokia’s portfolio-wide AI and data center initiatives. And let’s get some of the irony that’s been noted out there out of the way. Nokia selecting Intel executive may seem a bit peculiar given that Intel’s silicon manufacturing problems a few years back led to a lot of heartburn for Nokia in terms of its mobile access size, specifically radio access network capabilities, and that Verizon a few years back turned to Samsung, because Nokia was not able to, in some key ways, meet Verizon demands. And what was this linked to? Well, the little history here, there were delays in delivery of 10 nanometer ASICs for their 5G base station equipment, and Intel was identified really as the blameworthy supplier in this instance. And that disclosure, I think, didn’t really surprise many people at that time because of the manufacturing struggles that Intel was having at that time.
Now, Nokia then had to pivot to more expensive FPGAs, and that in turn upset its gross margins alongside its technology competitiveness, which then triggered a loss of market share in that key market segment, and it’s been a challenge to recover since then. However, I think this is important to note, that was a different era, involving a different set of decision makers. So Justin Hotard coming on, I think, is really a new level set, and again, I think it’s very wise of them to go in this direction of, “Okay, how can we optimize AI capabilities across the entire Nokia portfolio?” And yes, Justin is replacing Pekka Lundmark, who I thought did a very outstanding job overall in terms of getting Nokia in better shape over the last four years. It’s been challenging, they faced a lot of headwinds, and also, we saw that there was difficulty throughout the mobile ecosystem. So this wasn’t unique to Nokia in terms of what’s been going on over the last few years. Part of it was post-COVID related, and that is spending amongst the carriers on a global basis basically got dialed back, specifically on the cat back side.
Now, what I think is helpful in the near future is that that will start inching up this year and probably into the foreseeable future, due to factors such as operators exploring how to really optimize AI in terms of making them more competitive, that is, the service offerings, let alone the operations and the business processes within the operators themselves. And just an additional reason why we can say this about Lundmark is that their share price has been improving 10% over the last four years, and that, I think, is a tribute to navigating some of these massive challenges that Nokia faced. And also, I think it’s important to note that there was a sales growth weight of 9% during the first quarter of ’24 and the operating margin of 19.1%. All these were really, I would say, achievements that showed that Nokia hit these high marks and that they were best within the last decade.
Now, what I think is going to be important here is what’s next? What can Justin Hotard do to really make Nokia more competitive? And I’ll stop here, because Olivia, I think you might have some thoughts on why is Nokia really making this pivot to what can be characterized as an AI-driven portfolio development strategy, let alone sales and marketing strategy. What are some of your insights on this move?
Olivier Blanchard: Right. Well, I’m going to take a pass on that question, and just bounce it right back at you. I want to know what you’re thinking about it, but what I will say before that is I think it’s interesting that Nokia is turning to an AI and data center expert at scale, at scaling these services, at monetizing this, to run its company. So I think the question sort of answers itself. Obviously, it’s a pivot to AI, and they want the best talent on board to figure out how to do that properly.
This story is so full of layers of irony that we could dedicate the whole show to talking about it, but obviously, Intel’s woes are Nokia’s advantage, right now, because I don’t know that if Intel had had a better year, if anybody had been trying to look for a rosier horizon. So I think that the fact that he’s jumping on board with this new opportunity where he’s going to be able to do something that he might not have been able to do at Intel, something perhaps, I wouldn’t say more important, but definitely more important to Nokia than it would’ve been in Intel, and the ability to kind of do this for the next few years and build something really special is obviously part of the appeal. My question to you, though, is what’s Nokia’s game plan for the next three to five years? Because I think that’s the real question. How do they remain not just competitive, but relevant as the entire industry pivots to this AI stuff?
Ron Westfall: Ah, thank you, Olivier. And yes, I do have some thoughts on this now. Now, I’m not going to go as far out as five years from now. A lot can change, but I can say within the next one to three years what I think are some important takeaways and what Nokia can do to just do that, improve its competitiveness, and certainly, bringing Justin on is a key first step here. But I think specifically, it’s yes, good news for the data center side of the business. I think we’ve certainly seen Mike Bushong, who just came on relatively recently over a year ago, and basically head up energizing Nokia’s data center proposition.
And I think what’s going to be integral to this is normalizing what could be characterized as matter-of-fact innovation in terms of how Nokia prioritizes its portfolio development strategy. And that is things like making it easier to quite simply deploy a fabric. This is something that you think, “Oh, okay. It should just be a do-it-yourself proposition for organizations, because they’re big, they have these resources, they’re prioritizing AI.”
But actually no, this is pretty much, I think, coming out in some of our key recent future intelligence data, like when we surveyed 872 enterprise organizations, what is the top thing they’re looking at in terms of selecting, say, an overall AI solution? And that is AI expertise. They want their key supplier, their lead integrator, however you want to characterize it, to be the one that’s going to enable really a comprehensive full-stack vision and approach, and that would include, I would say, a lot of point products for that lead vendor. But ultimately, that is something that is going to be a difference-maker as enterprises and so forth figure out, “Okay, what is the best step How can we right-size language models and so forth?” And this is something I think Nokia can play a more integral role in.
And that, also I think, is also simplifying the execution, the daily tasks around things like auditing and troubleshooting. And this is not unique to the data center. This would apply to all units of Nokia, including certainly the mobile infrastructure side, including any software development initiatives that Nokia has overtaken, such as Telco SaaS, that comes to mind. And I think this is something that is not just about the data centers, but really removing some of these problems that continue to play, making real progress in terms of, say, automation across the data center. What I think this is going to enable is Nokia coming up and saying, “Hey, we have to look at an organization-wide automation plan to really make something like automation more, well, I would say, advantageous to the customer,” that is improving business outcomes. It’s one thing to have, say, automation using AI-enabled automation benefit, say, some individuals or some units within an organization, but there it stays. It’s pretty much siloed.
But I think what’s going to happen here is that it’s going to enable a portfolio development strategy and vision that’s taking advantage of the intersection of what’s going on with AI enablement, that is, the workflows, the systems, really, looking the entire ecosystem capabilities that a lead integrator can bring to really make that strategic difference to the customer. And I think it’s also making, to your point, Olivier, about integrations more scalable that remove not just the effort involved but also the time. And so this is really, I think, a way for Nokia to start looking at how they can show metrics that, “Okay, we can deliver time to value, let alone time to market value from our portfolio assets.” And this, I think, will definitely pull through things such as AI-RAN, which is potentially a new level set for how can mobile infrastructure be more efficiently deployed.
And so far, it’s still kicking the tires, but we saw with DeepSeek, “Okay, hey, if AI technology could be a lot more power efficient, a lot more software agile and so forth, at any part of the network, whether it’s the data center, whether it involves the training, let alone inferencing, this is something that’s not just about the data center, but the entire portfolio, including the mobile infrastructure pieces and so forth.” So in a nutshell, this is a very exciting move, and I think this is something where IC can make an impact in terms of answering the question why Nokia and how they could be just that, more differentiated, capturing more mindshare out there. And so perhaps that’s aligning with some of your thinking as well, Olivier, in terms of what needs to happen to kickstart enterprises getting more comfortable with AI.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah. No, I agree. I kind of wanted to hear it from you, because I can see sort of little bits and pieces of it, and I can see the overall shape of it, but I focus more on the devices than this part of the technology sector. So there are still some pieces missing to this, so it makes sense. Yeah, and it’s too bad for Intel. They’re losing a really talented leader at a critical time, and they’re already losing some of the other ones. So, yeah, it makes me worry. Actually, I think, as good of a pivot as this is for Nokia, or at least the next milestone in their sort of transformation journey, it makes me worry for Intel a little bit more that some of their best talent is getting poached by other industries. We’ll see
Ron Westfall: Now, that’s a legitimate point.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah.
Ron Westfall: Yeah. No, I think we’re not alone in that observation. And we will revisit Intel, but I think you mentioned devices, so let’s look at devices specifically. As we know, Qualcomm recently reported record Q1 fiscal year ’25 revenue, and how did this happen? Well, it was driven by strong premium-tier handset demand and also continued momentum in key segments, such as automotive. And this really resulted in its six consecutive quarter of record revenues. Now also, I think important to note is that Qualcomm CDMA technologies or QCT revenues surpassed $10 billion for the first time, while AI adoption across devices gained yet more traction. And so this is, I think, a real compliment to what’s going on with Nokia and what can be characterized as some of the infrastructure developments.
And I think what’s also important about the Qualcomm results is that it noted that Google Cloud and Meta are among the early adopters of its own AI infrastructure initiatives, as well as that Verizon and Google Cloud are partnering on advanced AI services for network maintenance and anomaly detection. And so while those are certainly the strengths, but we also have to look at the concerns that might be out there, and that, I think, revolves around Qualcomm’s technology licensing business or QTL. There’s ongoing negotiations with Huawei, and again, that might have some impact on near-term revenue stability. But overall, I think the results are pretty positive, even though there was some sell-off on the street, i.e., a bit of profit-taking.
Olivier Blanchard: Every time, every time.
Ron Westfall: Yes, yes. And seriously, Qualcomm’s expansion to AI, PCs, automotive, XR, and also AI-driven IoT segments is, I think, validating its long-term growth strategy that Cristiano Amon has implemented. And I’m going to stop there, because Olivier, what do you think about Qualcomm’s recent results? What are some things that leap out at you?
Olivier Blanchard: Right. Well, many things. So first of all, time will tell because there, because there’s still time to go, but this to me is further validation that Christano’s diversification strategy for Qualcomm that he sort of kicked off when he became CEO a few years ago is paying off. A lot of people are wondering, “Okay, we started out as Qualcomm being essentially, primarily a mobile-first company.” So you had some network stuff, but it was mostly modems and the SOCs for Android devices. They had a few other products, but that was essentially their core thing, other than licensing. And then we started seeing Qualcomm go into devices, so smartwatches and smart speakers and hearables and wearables. Obviously, they provide most of the processors currently for high-end XR, so all the Meta stuff, Google. Basically, if you’re wearing some kind of augmented-reality, virtual-reality, mixed-reality glasses or smart glasses, there’s a really good chance that Qualcomm tech is powering it.
Obviously, they have a huge play in automotive with their digital chassis and their Snapdragon automotive products. And this year, they did this leap into the PC segment, where we initially had essentially just Intel and AMD on the X86 side and you had Apple over here and you have Chromebooks. Now, you also have ARM-based Snapdragon processors powering AI PCs. They were the first to market with Microsoft with this, and then Intel and AMD followed. So they’ve sort of created all of these different runways to growth in addition to mobile and some of the network stuff that they had before and IoT. And what we’re seeing is that it’s working, right? So I think that’s kind of, along the broad lines, this diversification, this growth by chasing these different verticals that are very high growth, very popular right now with the most potential for expansion has been spot on. They’ve been on target 100%.
So I think you said it, automotive grew 60+%, I think IoT grew over 30% as well, and then mobile was pretty great. And then AI PCs, actually, it’s still too soon to tell, but we just conducted a really interesting study of the AI PC market, specifically for the enterprise. So we left out the long tail of small to medium-sized businesses. We didn’t look at consumer yet, we focused on enterprise first, and we pulled almost 900 IT decision makers in the enterprise space. So big, big companies just see where they are with your AI PC adoption journey, which processors they liked the most, which ones they intend to buy for the systems, if they’re going to be powered by Intel, AMD, Apple or Snapdragon, which is Qualcomm’s products.
And we’re already seeing that the intention, or at least I would say when we asked all of these ITDMs what their first choice is, so good for Intel, Intel is still number one. Still, that could change in the future, but right now, they’re fine. Number two was AMD, just because it’s in X86 systems, so it works really well with the enterprise. It’s proven. At best, they like it better than Intel. At worse, it’s a really good backup in case Intel can’t provide a part or there’s a problem. But Snapdragon, which is a new entrant into the space that has only been around for six months, already turned up 15% of ITDMs basically saying that that’s their first choice. That’s how impressed they are with the ARM-based Qualcomm-made Snapdragon X AI PCs. And so all of that brings me to the bigger points and the bigger trends in the industry and why I am probably here, and it’s that we’re seeing an expansion of the AI ecosystem from cloud. It used to be data center, because it requires so much power and processing power, so GPUs and all of all these massive resources to be able to train these systems to collect the data, process the data, just do all the training and the inference.
But what we’re seeing is that there’s, and in great part thanks to Qualcomm, we’re able now to move a lot of these AI workloads directly on device. So we’re going from the cloud out to the edge, and whether it’s an AI PC or a new smartphone, like Samsung’s Galaxy S25 series, which we talked about, I think, last time I was on that just launched a couple of weeks ago, the on-device capabilities for AI are so incredible that it’s actually cheaper, because you don’t necessarily have to pay for subscriptions or tokens for a cloud service to do that for you. Second, it’s really great, because there’s that immediacy of interactions, especially with agentic AI as it sort of embeds itself into our user experiences. When your interacting by voice with an assistant or an agent, and you’re asking them to do something or you’re asking them to answer a question, if your query doesn’t have to go all the way through the pipes to a data center in the cloud where it’s processed, and then the answer comes back and has to come back through, you can have an immediate conversation with your assistant on-device that’s going to feel natural, that’s going to feel like you’re in the same room with somebody without that delay.
There’s some security advantages, too, to having those agents directly on the device as opposed to in-cloud, less risk of interception, your data can remain secure, even the training of an agent over time with your preferences, the types of things that you ask when you ask them, can stay on-device inside of a firewall so that nobody has access to that. So there are a lot of advantages to moving these workloads to devices. And if you look at it more holistically, especially for the enterprise, one of the advantages also is that you can have a more federated, distributed AI ecosystem, where you’re not just dependent on cloud. If you need to, you can even network a bunch of devices together to work on bigger problems that might be too big for one device only, but not necessarily requiring a cloud-based solution to run it.
So I think even the warning shots that we got a week or two ago, I can’t even remember how long it’s been now, with DeepSeek and the whole notion that we now have AI models that can be trained on a fraction, allegedly, of the resources that we thought they could or they needed, sort of plays into that. We still need the data centers, we still need to build them, we still need the big GPUs. That doesn’t change. But the trend towards smart devices being a lot more capable of doing inference, for sure, and eventually becoming better and better at training is going to be kind of a game-changer.
And where it’s most important, I think, is in not just the PCs and other devices, but it’s going to be in the automotive sector. And so for that, the two things that you need is you need processors that are very good at doing AI workloads, so neural processing units or GPUs that work really well in conjunction with the rest of the system is one piece of it. But where Qualcomm is especially good, because they have that part, is they do it at low power. And when you’re looking at devices with small batteries or that have to process a lot of stuff and you don’t want them to overheat, you don’t want them to need a lot of energy, it’s really important for those systems or those processors to have extremely high output at very low power and be thermally efficient so that you don’t need massive fans to cool them in.
And that’s where Qualcomm excels, that’s where they have an advantage, so they have the best of both worlds. And the types of form factors that we’re talking about, from automotive all the way down to smart glasses, watches, phones, laptops, tablets, you have this sort of extremely advanced AI capability coupled with this very low-power performance characteristic where essentially it’s just the best performance on the market. And that’s why Qualcomm’s numbers look the way they do, that diversification with the right type of product for those applications that work extremely well with AI workloads. That’s kind of the sort of cheat code or cheat sheet to Qualcomm’s continued success, I think.
I don’t prognosticate, but I don’t see a reason why Qualcomm wouldn’t continue to have really good quarters. And because they’ve diversified, should one of those areas sort of slow down a little bit, let’s say the automotive sector slows down for a quarter or two, it doesn’t really matter, because they have all these others that are also growing. So there’s this constant sort of hedge against market slowdowns in different categories, and Qualcomm’s there, as opposed to having all their eggs in one basket like they used to.
Ron Westfall: Yeah. No, I fully concur with those insights, Olivier. I’m going to step out on a limb and do a bit of prognostication, and that is when it comes to just a snapshot of the IoT segment. And the reason why I’m doing that is because recently, I was at the Zoho Analyst event, and it’s like, “Okay, Zoho, they are a CRM specialist. What does this have to do with IoT?” Well, lo and behold, just in September of 2024, Zoho decided to toss its hat into the IoT segment, specifically pursuing market opportunities in areas such as smart buildings, manufacturing, energy management and so forth, and they’ve done their homework. Their portfolio development strategy, they realized, “Hey, if we could incorporate these things with an overall CRM platform, that means extra revenue generation and so forth,” paralleling Qualcomm’s own overall, what do you call, revenue diversification strategy that is really making a huge difference for them.
And I believe in ’25, we’re going to see the IoT segment grow, I would say not just an upward trajectory, but also robustly. And a lot of this is, I think, related to the fact that Snapdragon’s AI-capable chipsets are delivering those low-power capabilities that you pointed out, Olivier, and that could be, again, a driver for at least industrial IoT growth. And paralleling that is I’m seeing that Qualcomm Aware platform continuing to gain traction, because it’s integrating these AI-powered monitoring and location capabilities across some of the segments I already touched on, such as retail logistics, but also smart home applications.
And paralleling that as well is Qualcomm’s on-prem appliance inference suite, which is helping enterprises with private AI deployment solutions, something else that I think will have some market progress throughout ’25 and beyond because of rise in demand for Wi-Fi 7, 5G FWA, and really what could be called the edge computing market, which I think will be somewhat buffered from potential tariff outcomes, which can impact, say, the automotive segment more. But again, if you’re looking at the overall picture, these are positives for Qualcomm and this cross-pollination. I think we’re going to see more of it. CRM vendors jumping to IoT and so forth, and so this is.
Olivier Blanchard: I think so good. I think the industrial IoT, or what I prefer to call the commercial IoT, segment is probably going to see a resurgence this year, or at least start to. It was kind of like an exciting thing, and exciting space for a minute, and then it just sort of fizzled out, just flattened out. But now with low-power, AI-capable cameras, I think that especially cameras and drones are going to be hot this year. And what I’m seeing with Qualcomm, first of all, at their analyst event in New York a few months ago, they spent way more time on the industrial IoT than they ever have, and more so than they did even with automotive. So obviously, it’s their next big push.
But also, what I’m seeing is a lot of services around it, a lot of orchestration, and I found that interesting. So yes, I think you’re on the right track with this. I think that we need to watch the IoT space, because it’s going to get hot. And my question, too, is how much of that is Wi-Fi, how much of that is 5G, especially private networks? And I think the verdict still not out with that yet, but that’s going to be an interesting ecosystem to watch, to see where it goes in the next couple of years. But yeah, definitely keep an eye on the IoT space.
Ron Westfall: Yes, and to your point, Olivier, Qualcomm made a splash, I believe, at last fall’s Embedded World North America, the first time Embedded world has come to North America, and that was last October in Austin. And so I think that is another indicator this space is gaining momentum. The major shows are now diversifying on a geo basis, and that is, I think, proof positive follow the money. They’re not doing it because it’s fun. It’s because yes, revenue generation.
Olivier Blanchard: Well, maybe a little bit, maybe a little bit because it’s fun, but yeah, definitely the money.
Ron Westfall: Okay. No, Austin’s a fun city. Yeah, yeah. It’s more than sushi and karaoke. There’s also live music and barbecue.
Olivier Blanchard: Right, exactly.
Ron Westfall: Well, hey, this is great. I think this is really touching on the key things that jumped out at us, but there’s going to be plenty more. We’ll be back next week, because we’re getting closer to Mobile World Congress itself, and I think this next episode will focus more on what I think are MWC ’25 specific pre-announcements, and so that will fill the cupboard. And again, thank you, Olivier, for joining again. Lots of, I think, great takeaways and conversation.
Olivier Blanchard: Yeah. Thanks for having me again. Thanks for keeping inviting me. I’ll keep coming.
Ron Westfall: Right on. Yeah, the invites will just keep flying out. And also with that, don’t forget to tune in to The 5G Factor. We’re on The Futurum Group website, bookmark us, and also, we’re featured on Techstrong TV, also part of The Futurum Group family. And with that, again, thank you, everyone, and have a great 5G, industrial or commercial, IoT day.
Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
Research Director Olivier Blanchard covers edge semiconductors and intelligent AI-capable devices for Futurum. In addition to having co-authored several books about digital transformation and AI with Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman, Blanchard brings considerable experience demystifying new and emerging technologies, advising clients on how best to future-proof their organizations, and helping maximize the positive impacts of technology disruption while mitigating their potentially negative effects. Follow his extended analysis on X and LinkedIn.
