Qualcomm Surges on Dividend Hike (QCOM)
March 02, 2010 2:44 PM
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Qualcomm(NASDAQ: QCOM) stock has surged 5.2% to $37.40 after the company hiked its dividend and announced a new stock-repurchase program worth billions of dollars.
On Monday, Qualcomm declared that it would hike its quarterly cash dividend by 12%, and announced a new $3 billion stock repurchase program to replace a $2 billion stock repurchase program, which was recently completed with $1.7 billion of repurchase activity.
The cash dividend will now be now be 19 cents per share of common stock and will be effective for quarterly dividends payable after March 28, 2010. The cash dividend was previously at 17 cents. This dividend increase will raise the annualized dividend payout to 76 cents per share of common stock.
Qualcomm has returned $12.6 billion to the company's stockholders through a combination of dividends and stock repurchases since commencing the program in 2003. Qualcomm had about 1.64 billion shares of common stock outstanding as of February 26, 2010.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm peers are trading in mixed territory late Tuesday morning.
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