Qualcomm became the latest US technology company to suffer a reversal in China, as it warned on Wednesday that a government investigation there had added to its difficulties in collecting licensing fees on new mobile devices.
The mobile chipmaker’s shares slid by as much as 5 per cent in after-market trading after it forecast that it would miss out on licensing fees on as many as a quarter of a billion smartphones and tablets made in China this year.
The warning follows a dent to Chinese revenues at other US IT companies such as Cisco and IBM, which have been hit by falling demand amid reports of official Chinese moves to discourage purchases of US technology in the wake of the intelligence revelations by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden.