Qualcomm, Arm bear brunt of memory shortage as smartphone chip sales disappoint

Memory shortages will constrain sales of cell phones for some ‍time, hurting demand for chip industry ​companies like supplier Qualcomm and chip architecture designer Arm Holdings, executives and ⁠analysts said on Wednesday as both companies reported results that disappointed investors.

Among the world’s largest smartphone chip designers, Qualcomm is dealing with relatively tepid orders as customers fail to secure memory allocations to ship complete products, resulting in ‌the company forecasting ‌revenue in the current quarter below market estimates.