Smartphone race wears on Qualcomm A slowdown in demand for the high-end smartphones made by Apple and Samsung is set to weigh on the earnings of Qualcomm in the first half of next year, Paul Jacobs, the US chipmaker's chief executive, cautioned on Wednesday. However, Mr Jacobs added in an interview with the FT that the launch of a high-speed LTE mobile network in China and new tablet launches would bringing a bounce later in the year, making up for the earlier weakness. The Qualcomm boss's comments appeared to confirm concerns on Wall Street that the maturing market for the most expensive smartphones would start to eat into growth in what has been the tech industry's most successful new market since the birth of the PC. Qualcomm's latest quarterly earnings, released late on Wednesday, also fell short of forecasts, though Mr Jacobs put the disappointment down to a legal award against the company late in the period. Without that, revenues and earnings both comfortably beat expectations, he said. Investors have come to expect Qualcomm to outperform Wall Street's official forecasts, adding to the disappointment when the latest figures were reported after the market close on Wednesday. The company's shares slipped back 4 per cent in after-market trading on the news. The mobile chipmaker said that its revenues in the three months to September, the final period of its fiscal year, rose by 33 per cent to $6.48bn, compared with expectations of $6.24bn. However, net income, on the pro-forma basis that analysts judge the company, advanced by only 18 per cent, to $1.82bn, with earnings per share of $1.05, compared with expectations of $1.08. The legal judgment against the company had reduced earnings by around 10 cents a share, Mr Jacobs said. Based on standard accounting principles, Qualcomm said earnings per share had also risen 18 per cent, to 86 cents. Qualcomm's forecast pointed to a marked slowdown in revenue growth next year, from 30 per cent in 2013 to between 5-11 per cent. Mr Jacobs also said that profits would be weaker than expected in the first half of next year, due to a build-up in costs that the company has already seen ahead of the increase in high-end smartphone demand that would not now materialise. The increasing maturity of the smartphone market has prompted concerns that Qualcomm will see declines in the average selling prices of its products. According to the Qualcomm boss, however, the company is now expecting the average selling prices of handsets to fall by only $3 next year, to $223, as higher-priced LTE phones in countries like China take up the slack from more developed markets.