Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) Guidance Conservative Says Barclays

Citing a plethora of catalysts, Barclays believes the already solid guidance given by Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) for the current quarter and full year 2011 is on the conservative side.

Barclays says, "Post close wireless innovator QCOM delivered impressive December quarter results and raised both its March and FY11 outlook sharply (even ex-$250M boost from royalty resolution). We believe QCOM remains a core growth pick given leverage to Smartphones, Tablets, 3G momentum and accelerated 4G deployments. We believe the guidance for EPS and chip margins remains conservative with design and customer wins at Mobile World Congress (2/14/11) and incremental opportunities with AAPL's new iPhone for mid CY11 are likely to further boost sentiment.

"FY11 moves up from $12.7B to $13.9B with extra $650M from chips and $550M from royalties with CY11 device ASP estimate up from $186 to $195. FY11 EPS to over $3.00 from $2.75 and WCDMA/CDMA market size raised again to 775M units from 765M. We believe chip margin guidance of 23% for FY11 versus 30% in December may prove conservative.

"We consider resolution of 2nd larger (we believe) dispute should further lift EPS and while opex moves up again our CY11 EPS moves up crisply from $2.80 to $3.02. Laterals: QCOM's 60 dual core Snapdragon wins for Tablets/Phones could temper sentiment towards NVDA's Tegra."

Barclays reiterates an "Overweight" rating on Qualcomm (QCOM), which closed Thursday at $54.90, up $3.04, or 5.86 percent. Barclays has a price target of $62 on QCOM.