$22 billion! Skyworks and Qorvo officially announce merger.

$22 billion! Skyworks and Qorvo officially announce merger.

On October 28, 2025, local time, Skyworks and Qorvo, two major U.S. radio frequency (RF) chip giants, jointly announced that they had reached a definitive merger agreement. The merged company is expected to be valued at approximately $22 billion and will become a global leader in high-performance RF, analog, and mixed-signal semiconductors headquartered in the United States.

 

Following the news, Skyworks' stock price surged nearly 20% and Qorvo's stock price rose more than 15% during trading on October 28th in the US stock market. Although both companies closed with gains of less than 6%, it still demonstrates the market's optimism about the merger.

Skyworks has long been a leading global supplier of RF front-end semiconductors. Its main products include RF front-end modules, power amplifiers, filters, switches, and low-noise amplifiers, covering a wide range of fields such as smartphones, wireless infrastructure, automotive electronics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Particularly in the smartphone sector, Skyworks' RF chips are widely used by many leading smartphone manufacturers, including Apple and Samsung.

Similar to Skyworks, Qorvo is also a major global supplier in the RF front-end field. Its core products include RF front-end modules, power amplifiers, filters, switches, low-noise amplifiers, and some RF system-level solutions, covering mobile terminals such as smartphones, wireless infrastructure, automotive electronics, IoT, defense and aerospace and other fields.

The global RF front-end chip market has long been dominated by a few international giants such as Qualcomm, Skyworks, Qorvo, Broadcom, and Murata. According to Counterpoint Research data from 2022, Skyworks and Qorvo together held 33.7% of the global RF front-end chip market. (Qualcomm's leading market share is mainly due to the strong position of its Snapdragon mobile platform with integrated baseband in the smartphone market, which has driven the increase in its market share of supporting RF front-end solutions.)

It is worth mentioning that data from the beginning of this year showed that among these major RF front-end chip manufacturers, Skyworks derives 59% of its revenue from Apple, Qorvo derives about 30% of its revenue from its platform, Broadcom derives about 15%, and Qualcomm derives about 20%.

However, Apple has already launched its own 5G baseband and RF system, C1, and successfully adopted it in the iPhone 16e. It is expected that Apple will gradually reduce its reliance on RF front-end components from Skyworks and Qorvo, which will put significant pressure on the future revenue of these two companies. This may be a key reason driving the merger of the two companies.

Phil Brace, CEO and President of Skyworks, stated, “This merger is a significant milestone for both our industry and Skyworks. The combination of Skyworks and Qorvo’s complementary product portfolios and world-class engineering teams will enhance our ability to meet the growing needs of our customers in a mobile and diverse range of markets. With greater scale, a more diversified customer base, and operational synergies, we can deliver greater innovation to our customers and create sustainable value for our shareholders.”

“Qorvo and Skyworks share a culture of innovation and are committed to solving our customers’ most complex challenges,” said Bob Bruggeworth, CEO and President of Qorvo. “Partnering with Skyworks allows us to accelerate innovation and deliver broader, more comprehensive solutions across a wide range of growth areas. We are excited to leverage the combined strengths of our teams, products, and technology portfolio to significantly expand our reach in defense and aerospace, edge IoT, AI data centers, automotive, and other industries driven by long-term growth trends, building on our capabilities in the mobile space.”

If Skyworks and Qorvo successfully merge, it will further strengthen the United States' leading position and influence in the supply chain of radio frequency and wireless chips. This should be welcomed by the United States, which is continuously promoting the growth and strengthening of its domestic semiconductor supply chain.

However, given Skyworks and Qorvo's leading position and market share in the RF front-end chip field, the merger of these two US companies is expected to attract antitrust investigations from regulatory agencies in major markets such as the EU and China.

Strategic Basis and Transaction Highlights

Skyworks and Qorvo stated that they expect the transaction to deliver significant long-term value to customers, employees, and shareholders.

1. Enhanced scale and financial position: The combined company is expected to generate annual revenue of approximately $7.7 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $2.1 billion. The combined company will be in a more advantageous position to compete with larger companies—a stronger and more balanced revenue base will lead to more predictable performance, a more efficient cost structure, and more flexible cash generation capabilities over the cycle.

2. Enhanced Innovation Capabilities: The merger will create an innovative global RF, analog, and power technology company, providing customers with highly integrated complete solutions and a broad range of products and technologies. The combined company will bring together world-class engineering talent, including approximately 8,000 engineers and technical experts, and over 12,000 granted and pending patents, enabling it to accelerate the development of advanced system-level solutions and unlock new design monetization opportunities to meet growing customer needs.

3. Create a $5.1 billion mobile business: This merger will combine complementary RF technologies and best-in-class products to expand opportunities in the mobile business while improving revenue stability. A broader product portfolio will enhance the company's cross-platform competitiveness, deepen customer integration, enrich the company's technology base, and strengthen the company's ability to cope with increasingly complex RF businesses.




4. Establish a diversified and broad market platform worth $2.6 billion: This transaction creates a broad market platform worth $2.6 billion, with a growing and profitable potential market size (TAM) in the defense and aerospace, edge IoT, AI data centers, and automotive markets. These markets are characterized by strong long-term growth trends, long product lifecycles, and good gross margins.






5. Enhance domestic manufacturing position and improve utilization: The merged company will strengthen its domestic production capacity and improve its capital efficiency, supported by a strong supply chain partner network to meet the needs of high-volume and highly specialized customers.




6. Immediate and significant added value: The transaction is expected to generate a meaningful increase in the non-GAAP earnings per share of the combined company immediately after the transaction is completed, and annual cost synergies of $500 million or more will be generated within 24-36 months after the company is fully integrated.


 

Transaction details

Under the terms of the agreement, Qorvo shareholders will receive $32.50 in cash and 0.960 shares of Skyworks common stock for each Qorvo share they hold at the close of the transaction, which translates to a total corporate value of approximately $22 billion.

Following the transaction, Skyworks shareholders will own approximately 63% of the combined company, while Qorvo shareholders will own approximately 37% on a fully diluted basis. Phil Brace will serve as the CEO of the combined company; Bob Bruggeworth will join the board of directors. The combined company's board will consist of 11 directors, with 8 from Skyworks and 3 from Qorvo.

Skyworks plans to finance the cash portion of the transaction through a combination of existing cash and additional financing. Skyworks has secured a debt financing commitment from Goldman Sachs. The transaction is not subject to any financing conditions. The combined company is expected to have a net leverage ratio of approximately 1.0x of its adjusted EBITDA for the past 12 months at closing. This favorable capital structure will allow for continued investment in the business to drive shareholder value.

Expected transaction completion time

The boards of directors of both companies unanimously approved the transaction, which is expected to close in early 2027, subject to necessary regulatory approvals, the satisfaction of Skyworks and Qorvo shareholders and other customary closing conditions.

Starboard Value LP, which owns approximately 8% of Qorvo, has signed a voting agreement to support the deal.

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