After over a year of being supply constrained with chips produced using 28nm process technology, Qualcomm, the world’s largest supplier of application processors for mobile devices, said that in the first quarter of its fiscal 2013 (ended December 30, 2012) it finally got the number of system-on-chips it wanted. As a result, the company posted significant sequential and year-over-year revenue gains.

“In QCT [division], we delivered record chipset volumes which included eliminating the constraint on 28nm devices as we had expected,” said Paul Jacobs, chief executive officer and chairman of Qualcomm, during a quarterly conference call with financial analysts.

For several quarters in a row, Qualcomm said that TSMC could not supply it enough Snapdragon S4 system-on-chips and application processors made using 28nm low-power (28LP) manufacturing process, which limited its revenues and profits. At present over 400 devices use Qualcomm’s 28nm chips. During the Q1 FY2013 Qualcomm shipped around 182 million chips for wireless applications, a significant portion was made using 28nm fabrication process.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2013, Qualcomm’s revenue was $6.02 billion, up 29% year-over-year (y-o-y) and 24% sequentially. The company’s operating income was$2.09 billion, up 35% y-o-y and 69% sequentially, whereas net income reached $1.91 billion, up 36% y-o-y and 50% sequentially.

“We are pleased to report record quarterly revenues, Non-GAAP EPS and MSM chip shipments, driven by the growing global demand for smartphones and our industry-leading portfolio of 3G/LTE chipsets. Our broad licensing partnerships and extensive chipset roadmap, including our recently announced best-in-class Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and 600 processors, position us well for strong growth, and we are pleased to be raising our revenue and earnings guidance for fiscal 2013,” added Mr. Jacobs.

Tags: Qualcomm, Snapdragon, 28nm, TSMC, Business