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With this quarter's earnings season kicking in, the results are starting to flow in. As the market declines in general, tech manufacturers in general seem optimistic, despite slowdown in year on year gains. Its Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)'s turn today, with the San Diego chip giant having announced earnings results for Q3 FY16.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) Sees Year On Year Revenue Increase By 4% With Chip Shipments Growing Sluggishly

As Samsung gets all set to launch the Galaxy Note 7, which is rumored to come with the Snapdragon 821, Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)'s overall revenues reflect a similar picture. San Diego's been struggling in one of core product lineups, the Snapdragon lineup of processors for quite a while. This fact becomes even more clear as chip shipments decline from the previous quarter. Year on Year however, we see a growth of 11%, with 201M shipments made overall.

Revenues increased to $6 Billion from $5.6 Billion over the previous year as the company beat analyst expectation with an EPS of 0.97/share. While chip sales overall aren't still at Q2 levels, the market in general was expecting the number to fall below 200M. The major driver behind this quarter's 4% revenue growth has been an increase in fees received from the Chinese market. As the US and European markets start to saturate, we've seen quite a few tech giants make moves in the East, with mixed results.

Intel, in particular has seen some poor luck in China, as the company failed to book predicted revenue levels from cloud computing platforms. However Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)'s been making steady headway in the country, as device manufacturers slowly start to make royalty payments. When compared to chip shipments of 201M, Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) made device shipments in the range of 321-325M, up 11% from the previous year. Device shipments refer to Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM)'s 3G/4G modems, which form an integral part of nearly every smartphone out there.

However, before you get too optimistic, keep in mind that a portion of these is likely attributed to a decrease in price of said mobile devices. Prices have dropped by 7% both sequentially and year on year, which shouldn't be that much of a surprise. Both equipment and license revenues decreased for the 9 month recognition period, resulting in an overall decrease of 100 million in Net Income. Qulcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) is also seeing operating cash flows decrease and short/long term debt levels increase so we should see some aggressive spending as well.

The company's hoping that the final quarter of FY16 will improve matters, with revenue to fall in the range of (1%) - 14%. EPS estimates on the other hand are expected to decline but increase year on year. San Diego's also hoping that chip shipments will improve to 215M this quarter. Device sales on the other hand won't be recovering to Q3 FY15 levels, even as the situation in China improves. Market share price for the manufacturer jumped by 7.3% to $59.91 after yesterday's closing of $55.82.