$QCOM · Parkev Tatevosian, CFA · 2026-11-05

SpaceX delivered great news to Qualcomm's stock investors, as Qualcomm announced on Wednesday that SpaceX had selected its Dragon Wing cellular infrastructure platforms to power its national terrestrial 5G network for Starlink mobile service.

So, this is excellent news for Qualcomm, which has shown an ability to expand with new companies and categories, and this is one of the reasons that prompted me to add Qualcomm shares to my portfolio and one of the reasons that made me rate Qualcomm as a buy opportunity.

I wanted to delve into these details, find out what this means for Qualcomm stock investors, update you on my fair value estimate for the company, and see if it's still a buying opportunity even after this news, because it pushed Qualcomm shares up by 2.4%.

According to Qualcomm, the new deal will allow the two companies to begin deploying advanced 5G service and provide an opportunity to lay the groundwork for an AI-powered 6G network in the coming years.

This is one of the catalysts that could drive Qualcomm's stock up in the coming years, namely the upgrade cycle to the next generation, the sixth generation, instead of the fifth.

Remember that the smartphone and cellular network industries are among Qualcomm's core business categories. It is expanding into the automotive sector, the personal computer industry, and later next year into the data center industry , but the smartphone and cellular network category remains the main category for revenue and profits.

They went on to say that their agreement with SpaceX is designed in such a way that deployment will begin next year, and will accelerate significantly from then on, according to Qualcomm's executive vice president and general manager of technology planning, edge solutions and data centers.

He added that the agreement extends for several years in terms of publishing capacity while we work to expand coverage to include all parts of the country. Therefore, this could be a big deal for Qualcomm, although the terms of the agreement were not disclosed in this article.

Since the terms of the agreement and the financial implications were not disclosed in these statements, I did not include this news in my discounted cash flow valuation model .

I don't want to speculate on the extent of the impact this will have on the company's results, but what I can say is that it is likely to have a positive impact on its results.

Therefore, my free cash flow estimates for Qualcomm are likely to be revised higher in the coming period. I had already estimated that Qualcomm's stock was significantly undervalued even without this news.

I was betting on Qualcomm's success in the data center category to be the next catalyst that could drive its stock up.

So, this was a great added bonus. I calculated the fair value of Qualcomm stock at $282, and even after today's news, it is trading at $169, which makes it significantly undervalued in my opinion.

Currently, Qualcomm stock is trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of just 13, which is close to the lowest level I've been able to buy this stock at in several years. For a brief period in early 2026, you could buy the stock at a lower price, but the valuation rose very quickly.

Looking back to 2025, there was also another brief moment when I was able to buy the stock at a lower price.

And that was all. You really couldn't have bought Qualcomm stock at a much lower valuation . Now, she mentioned that one of its core categories is the smartphone industry, which is struggling in 2026 and is likely to continue to struggle in terms of total unit sales in 2027.

However, it is likely to achieve higher average selling prices per smartphone and incorporate more components into each phone, as consumers are willing to pay higher prices to get AI capabilities in their phones.

They are forced to pay higher prices due to the increased costs of memory and storage components resulting from the growing demand in data centers for similar components. Manufacturers are forced to compete with data center builders for similar components , and this is causing consumer electronics prices to rise .

However, despite these headwinds, the low valuation and the prospects for expansion in data centers make me excited about Qualcomm stock. I have rated the stock as a buying opportunity with a relatively high degree of conviction and a relatively high level of confidence that it will indeed be a great investment.

I own Qualcomm stock in my portfolio and I am interested in adding more of it.