CNBC Television · Sep 23, 2026
With Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm
Qualcomm's fiscal third quarter was the bottom for a smartphone market still held down by memory prices, Cristiano Amon said, and demand is holding even with higher prices.
He and the interviewer had been discussing falling smartphone prices for a couple of quarters, including at the premium end. Amon said the premium tier has held up better than the rest, and he spent most of the segment on a different change: phones that keep working when their owner puts them down.
"We now have to design chips to allow the phone to be working, even when you're not operating it, and with an all day battery life and a lot of AI at the edge."
Cristiano Amon, CEO of Qualcomm, on CNBC Television, spoke from the company's Snapdragon Summit in Maui, where Qualcomm had just unveiled its latest mobile chips. The show introduced Qualcomm as the big name at the top of the non-Apple, Android smartphone supply chain, and CNBC billed the conversation as a first-on-CNBC interview.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 5 insights that matter.
Key Takeaways
AI agents now operate the phone for its owner, going into apps and the cloud on the user's behalf
An agent that is not trusted, or takes too much effort, loses to people doing the task themselves
Qualcomm is moving an AI co-processor from its data center business into phones
Some companies are asking for 100 billion model parameters to run on the device
Apple building a foldable should drive more of the format, in his view, not less
Fiscal Q3 was the bottom for a phone market still depressed by memory prices
He thinks demand is holding even with higher prices
1. Agents Will Run the Phone
The segment opened with the news that Qualcomm had unveiled its latest mobile chip systems at the Snapdragon Summit. The interviewer asked how Qualcomm's work on AI that runs on the device, rather than in a data center, fits the current debate about AI safety and efficiency.
The summit's main message is that the AI smartphone is now defined
Look, the main announcement that we have on this Snapdragon Summit right now is actually we have now clarity what an AI smartphone look like.
Cristiano Amon
Qualcomm has talked about the AI smartphone for a couple of years, he said, and several AI technologies have now made it possible.
Many phones on sale already qualify
You have a lot of phones now that are basically AI smartphone. They have agents and those agents start to operate the phone for you.
Cristiano Amon
Until now, he said, the phone has been built for its owner to operate: the owner opens the apps and does the work.
Agents will do the work in the apps instead
But then there's also agents that are going to go to your apps for you. It's going to go to the cloud and it's going to do things for you on your behalf.
Cristiano Amon
He called that an interesting engineering problem. The chip has to keep the phone working while nobody is using it, still deliver a full day of battery life and run a lot of AI on the device itself.
2. Trust and Low Friction
Amon said two conditions decide whether people will hand tasks to an agent.
Without trust and ease, people do it themselves
Trust. You have to trust the agent, and the AI is going to be working on your behalf. And then you have to have low friction. Otherwise you do it yourself.
Cristiano Amon
He said there is a lot of discussion about this, and a lot of devices built around it are coming to market.
3. A Data Center Co-Processor
Qualcomm announced a new chip for these phones, and part of it comes from a different business.
Data center technology is moving into the phone
We announce a brand new chip for this area, including an AI co-processor, which is kind of the same technology we did for our data center business that we're just starting moving that to the phones.
Cristiano Amon
An AI co-processor is a separate chip, or part of a chip, dedicated to running AI models. Demand for running large models on the handset is coming from both companies and consumers, he said.
Customers want large models to run on the device
There are companies now asking for 100 billion model parameters running on your device, and some consumers, we wanted the AI to be running on their device or their data and to be in control.
Cristiano Amon
Model parameters are the learned values inside an AI model, and the count is the usual measure of a model's size.
4. Apple Will Help Foldables
The interviewer turned to foldable phones. Qualcomm chips are already in Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra and other folding Android phones, he said, and Apple's first foldable was due in a few weeks at a high price. He asked whether foldables could push smartphone prices up after quarters of downward pressure, and how Qualcomm was preparing.
Amon answered from his own experience. He said the phone he uses is a foldable, his fifth by his count.
Folding phones are not new to Android
I think foldable and flips have been probably part, I think, of the Android ecosystem for a while.
Cristiano Amon
Apple's entry should grow the category
We're very excited that Apple is going to build one. If anything, it's going to drive more of that form factor.
Cristiano Amon
He described foldables as one more example of phones, tablets and PCs converging into one kind of device.
5. Q3 Was the Bottom
On prices, Amon said the handset market is still weak and named the cause.
Memory costs are holding the market down
The mobile market is still kind of depressed because of the memory prices. But we have seen the premium tier have been more resilient.
Cristiano Amon
He pointed back to what Qualcomm said on its last earnings call.
The company has already called the low point
We talk about it in our last earnings that really Q3 fiscal, it was the bottom.
Cristiano Amon
Buyers are paying the higher prices
We are seeing even with higher prices right now, I think demand is holding.
Cristiano Amon
Bonus Insights
He called the phone the biggest electronics purchase people make
Amon ended on why demand holds up: he called the smartphone the most important consumer electronics purchase anyone makes. The segment cut off as he was explaining the point.
Qualcomm's position, in the show's words
The interviewer introduced Qualcomm as the big name at the top of the Android, "non-Apple food chain," and described the summit as a big moment for the company to show what its chips can do.
Amon's bottom line is that phones are becoming devices that run AI agents on their owners' behalf, which Qualcomm is building chips for, while a market held back by memory prices passed its low point in Qualcomm's fiscal third quarter.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Qualcomm (Amon's company, which introduced a new mobile chip with an AI co-processor drawn from its data center business)
Snapdragon Summit (Qualcomm's event in Maui, where the new mobile chips were unveiled)
Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra from Samsung (A folding Android phone the interviewer said already uses Qualcomm chips)
Apple (Its first foldable was due in a few weeks at a high price; Amon said it will drive more of the format)
Watch the full interview
If this was worth your time, send it to someone who follows the name.
Get the latest market chatter as it happens: