Qualcomm cut an undisclosed number of jobs on October 20, and CEO Cristiano Amon told staff in an internal memo that the move was meant to build "a stronger performance culture," according to a Reuters report cited by Wccftech. The timing is what has people talking: the layoffs landed just days after Korean media outlets alleged that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6, Qualcomm's newest flagship chip, was suffering from overheating and thermal throttling.
Qualcomm has not confirmed any connection between the two, and Wccftech says it has reached out to the company for clarification but had not received a response as of its report. Nothing here ties the job cuts directly to chip performance complaints. What's confirmed is a round of layoffs explained internally as a performance issue, arriving in close proximity to a separate, unverified claim about the chip itself.
The numbers behind the cuts
Wccftech's own math points to financial strain as a more concrete driver. Qualcomm's revenue across the first three quarters of 2025 came to $20.8 billion, against $18.9 billion over the same stretch in 2026, a drop of roughly $1.92 billion. That figure isn't net income, but it's a sizable chunk of the company's annual haul. A social media account, @damnang2, claimed Qualcomm's roughly 52,000-person workforce would shrink by 7 to 8 percent, though Qualcomm itself has not disclosed a headcount figure.
Amon's memo reportedly told employees that performance "has consistently fallen short of expectations," language that reads as standard corporate framing for a cost-cutting round rather than an admission tied to any single product. Wccftech also points to a DRAM shortage as a pressure the company hasn't been able to absorb well, arguing Qualcomm's lack of diversification outside mobile chips leaves it exposed when one segment wobbles.
Where the Exynos rumors fit in
The overheating allegations themselves trace back to Korean outlets, and Wccftech has previously argued those reports form part of a pattern favoring Samsung's upcoming Exynos 2700, which is rumored to run 20 percent faster than Qualcomm's 2nm Snapdragon chip in multi-core and GPU workloads. None of that is confirmed either. It's a leak stacked on top of an allegation, and Samsung hasn't detailed the Exynos 2700 publicly.
So the story, as it stands, is two things happening close together rather than one thing causing the other. Qualcomm has a real revenue problem this year, and it has responded with layoffs it says are about culture and performance. Separately, Korean media has questioned whether its flagship chip runs too hot, a claim that feeds into a broader narrative about Samsung's next silicon. Whether those threads actually cross will depend on what Qualcomm says next, and on how the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 performs once devices carrying it reach reviewers rather than rumor mills.
CDFiled by The Computing Desk
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