What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does QUALCOMM (QCOM) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, QUALCOMM generated $14.3B of operating cash flow and $12.5B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 87.5% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did QUALCOMM (QCOM) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent QUALCOMM's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

QUALCOMM (QCOM) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$14.3B

Capex

-$1.78B

Free Cash Flow

$12.5B

FCF Margin

+87.5%

Cash flow waterfall for QUALCOMM (QCOM) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $12.5B

Cash flow breakdown for QUALCOMM (QCOM) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$14.3B	$14.3B
Capital Expenditure	-$1.78B	$12.5B
Free Cash Flow	$12.5B	$12.5B
Acquisitions	-$1.63B	$10.9B
Other Investing	$2.35B	$13.2B
Share Buybacks	-$10.7B	$2.49B
Dividends Paid	-$3.82B	-$1.33B
Net Debt Change	$322M	-$1.01B
Other Financing & FX	-$758M	-$1.77B
Net Cash Decrease	-$1.77B	-$1.77B

Operating Cash Flow$14.3B
Capital Expenditure-$1.78B
Free Cash Flow$12.5B
Acquisitions-$1.63B
Other Investing$2.35B
Share Buybacks-$10.7B
Dividends Paid-$3.82B
Net Debt Change$322M
Other Financing & FX-$758M
Net Cash Decrease-$1.77B

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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