After a federal jury decided in favor of the San Diego-based chipmaker on two of three counts, analysts said Monday that Qualcomm (QCOM, Financial) emerged with a "clear win" in its legal struggle with Arm Holdings (ARM, Financial).
Arm's stock sank 2.6%; Qualcomm's shares rose 2% in premarket trade. Stacy Rasgon, a Bernstein analyst, emphasized the importance of the jury's discovery that Arm architecture license of Qualcomm's CPUs licensed under Nuvia's designs is owned by the business. For Qualcomm and its CEO Cristiano Amon, Rasgon termed the outcome a "decisive victory".
On Qualcomm, Rasgon kept an Outperform rating and a $215 price target; on Arm, he assigned an Underweight rating and a $100 target. Since there were no agreement terms broken, he pointed out that the jury's conclusions made Arm unlikely to revoke Qualcomm's architectural license.
Analyst Aaron Rakers of Wells Fargo called the result a "key win" for Qualcomm, therefore setting the standard for any retrial Arm requests.
Though they were deadlocked on whether Nuvia itself breached its architectural license, the jury also decided in Qualcomm's favor over possible breaches of that license. The outcome strengthens Qualcomm's license posture going ahead and guarantees its CPU roadmap.
