Qualcomm Promotes Steve Mollenkopf To Succeed Paul Jacobs As CEO

(RTTNews) - Mobile chip maker Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) said Friday that it's board of directors has promoted President and Chief Operating Officer Steve Mollenkopf to Chief Executive Officer-elect of the company and also appointed him to its board. He succeeds Paul Jacobs, who will assume the role of executive chairman, helping guide development of new technology and Qualcomm's long-term opportunities.

Mollenkopf's promotion to the top position in Qualcomm comes amid media reports indicating that Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world's largest software maker, was considering him as a candidate for its new CEO to succeed Steve Ballmer.

San Diego, California-based Qualcomm noted that the management changes are effective March 4, 2014, following the company's 2014 annual meeting of stockholders.

In his role as CEO, Mollenkopf will assume overall responsibility for Qualcomm, including all lines of business and all functional groups in the company. He will also continue to serve as the company's president.

Sherry Lansing, presiding director of Qualcomm's Board of Directors and chair of its Governance Committee said, "With today's announcement, we enable a smooth transition to a proven executive in Steve Mollenkopf, while providing for ongoing executive guidance and Board-level leadership from Paul Jacobs."

Jacobs, the son of Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Mark Jacobs, joined Qualcomm in 1990 as a development engineer leading the mobile phone digital signal processor software team.

In 1995, Jacobs became vice president and general manager of the combined handset and integrated circuit division, which was subsequently divided into Qualcomm Consumer Products and the chipset business QCT, respectively. Jacobs became CEO of the company in July 2005 and was appointed chairman in 2009.

Qualcomm noted that during Jacob's tenure as CEO, the company's market cap more than doubled, revenues more than quadrupled, and reported earnings per share more than tripled.

Further, the company said that incoming CEO Mollenkopf's technology background and business experience make him ideally suited to lead the next phase of the company's growth and success.

Mollenkopf joined Qualcomm in 1994 as an engineer and was a leading contributor to the Globalstar project before joining the QCT team in 1999. In his nearly 20 years at Qualcomm, Mollenkopf has held a variety of leadership positions including leading the chipset business, successfully driving innovation and record growth.

Since 2008, Mollenkopf led QCT and served as executive vice president and group president of Qualcomm. QCT is the world's largest wireless chip supplier and fabless semiconductor company, in terms of revenue.

Under Mollenkopf, QCT also completed the $3.1 billion acquisition of Atheros, the company's largest acquisition to date, to accelerate the expansion of Qualcomm's technologies and platforms beyond cellular.

Qualcomm provides baseband chips, which connect phones to cellular networks, to leading smartphone makers, and licenses its code division multiple access technology.

The company has been benefiting from a surge in smartphone sales and tablets that use its chips. But investors have also been concerned about a saturation in smartphone sales in developed markets, while regions such as Asia appear lucrative.

In early November, Qualcomm reported an 18 percent increase in profit for the fourth quarter, as robust demand for smartphones boosted sales of chips such as the Snapdragon.

QCOM closed Thursday's trading at $72.73. In Friday's pre-market trading, the stock is up $0.42 or 0.58 percent to $73.15.