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At Nokia, I focused on launching the virtual reality program, the digital health and wearables program and the Nokia brand licensing program. I also led the growth of the Nokia patent licensing program, which centered on monetizing over 100,000 patents worldwide. Given my background and passion for sensory technology such as audio and video, I see an opportunity to build a successful enterprise based on touch sensory technology.

As consumers demand richer experiences with surround sound and high-definition video, they will also expect their tactile sensors to enrich their interface with the world around them. I look forward to applying my experience in licensing media technologies and bringing a fresh perspective to the haptics market. Today at Immersion, we believe the haptics market is still in its infancy and that our touch technology is just beginning to emerge in the marketplace and has a unique capability to bring people closer, create immersive and intimate experiences and enable our customers' products to be more engaging.

I've spent the first month as CEO meeting with employees, visiting our offices, experiencing our technologies, reviewing our product roadmap and doing a deep dive into the market opportunities for haptics. Although I'm at the early stages of my assessment, I can share that I'm very impressed by the team, their passion and commitment to innovation and the tremendous technology development that is ingrained in the fabric of the organization. In fact, our labs in Montreal have some truly ground-breaking technologies that few consumers have ever experienced.

Additionally I am proud to say that the last 25 years of innovation at Immersion has yielded a world-class and best-in-class haptics patent portfolio, which remains largely untapped to this day. The opportunity in front of us is significant across each of the markets we address.

On last quarter's call, we mentioned that we -- we mentioned that we had begun to explore and launch the discussions with several haptic driver IP manufacturers as a potential channel for our technology in China and other places around the world. This strategy emerged due to substantial interest from this channel in part because of the breadth of our know-how related to haptic implementation and in part due (ph) to market acknowledgment of our broad patent portfolio as haptics capability become increasingly important to their end customers.

Today we're happy to announce our first channel partner in the haptic driver IC market with Dongwoon Anatech, a Korean-based semiconductor provider. The agreement will make Immersion haptic patent licenses available to mobile phone and wearable OEMs and simplify the haptic technology acquisition process for their customers. We are thrilled to have reached this milestone and expect to form additional partnership of this kind this fiscal year. This approach will allow us to scale our business cost effectively as we begin to gain access to market to premium devices in the channel in the China mobile market.

We're pleased to report our financial results for Q4 and the full fiscal year 2018. These results demonstrate the value proposition that Immersion brings to our customers and the market as well as the shareholder value that can be generated through our business model. To succeed, we will be required to continue to innovate and lead in haptic technology and also find the best way to bring that technology to our customers.

As an example, we're seeing a shift in our customer discussions in certain markets toward more per unit agreement structured without minimum commitment. This may decrease some of the lumpiness we experienced in our 2018 royalty revenue and we believe it is in the best interest of our customers and shareholders to allow for more sustainable and predictable revenue over time.

Over the next 90 days, I will continue to deep dive into our organization, the market potential for Immersion and our 2019 annual operating plan. For each of the markets we address, we are evaluating the size of the TAM, our success in terms of market share realized, and most importantly, the opportunity that remains in front of us.

Haptics, as a technology, has broad market applicability, which means we need to be very thoughtful in our prioritization and approach. What I take from our early analysis is that Immersion is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the market growth that is still before us in coming years.

Lastly, we remain confident in our position regarding the legal matters with Samsung and Motorola. As a reminder, jury selection in the Samsung US District Court case is scheduled for May 2019. Today, we announced the filing of a patent infringement suit against Samsung Electronics GmbH in Mannheim District Court for infringing one of our German patents. This patent is a German counterpart of our 051 patent that we have asserted against Samsung in the US District Court case and was previously asserted against Apple.

For Motorola, trial is scheduled for October 2019. For additional details on the case timelines and recent events, I refer you to the Legal Proceedings section of our 10-K, which will be filed tomorrow.

In summary, I'm very excited to have joined Immersion at this time. We have work in front of us to achieve the sustainably profitable business model, we believe, is possible. The fundamentals are in place and I, along with the management team, are aligned and focused on driving shareholder value not just for 2019, but for many years beyond. I look forward to updating you next quarter with further detail on our strategic approach to the market.

I will now turn the call over to Nancy to provide an update on our financials before opening the call up for questions.

Nancy Erba -- Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Ramzi. Let me begin by referring you to this afternoon's press release for information regarding our Q4 and full year financial performance, including tables that illustrate the comparison of our revenue for the fourth quarter and full year to the same period a year ago, highlighting the impact of our adoption of ASC 606. Our revenue of $10.9 million for Q4 of 2018 was up 58% from revenue of $6.9 million in the year-ago period.

We have discussed -- as we have discussed in previous calls, we adopted ASC 606 on a modified retrospective basis. So a comparison to the same quarter a year ago may not be particularly meaningful. If you refer to the table, which depicts revenue on a comparable basis under ASC 605, you will see revenue from per unit royalty arrangements (ph) was down $300,000 or 6% compared with the prior year quarter, reflecting declines in reported royalty-bearing shipments by gaming and mobile licensees, offset in part by an increase in royalty-bearing shipments reported by automotive and medical licensees.

Revenue from fixed license fee arrangements was up 177% on a comparable basis primarily due to license fees from new customers recognized in the fourth quarter of 2018. For the year ended December 31, 2018, total revenue of $111 million, increased $76 million or 217% compared to the year ended December 31, 2017. The increase was primarily attributable to a $71 million increase in fixed license fee revenue as a result of a large fixed fee agreement signed in the first quarter of 2018.

As we discussed in our previous calls, the treatment of fixed fee arrangements under ASC 606 is expected to drive lumpiness in our results and continue -- and contribute to the lack of comparability with prior year results.

Turning to operating expenses. Operating expenses for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2018 were down 25% and 28% respectively from the prior year comparable period. The reduction in expenses for the quarter and year reflect the impact of the restructuring activity we undertook in December 2017 as well as lower litigation expenses due to settlements reached with Apple and Fitbit earlier in the year. We remain laser focused on managing our business in an operationally efficient manner, while continuing to make progress on key initiative.

Moving onto income taxes and the effects of the Tax Reform Act. We finalized the effects of the acts during the fourth quarter of 2018. As we expected, the impact was not significant due to the full valuation allowance we carry against substantially all of our deferred tax assets. We continue to assess factors related to the realizability of our deferred tax assets to determine, if or when an adjustment to our valuation allowance is appropriate.

As a reminder, the valuation allowance does not impact our ability to utilize our deferred tax assets, including net operating loss carry-forwards. As a result of income generated during the year, substantially all of our federal net operating loss carry-forwards were utilized as of December 31, 2018.

GAAP net loss for the quarter was $3.1 million or $0.10 per share. GAAP net income for the year ended December 31, 2018 was $54.3 million or $1.73 per diluted share. Non-GAAP net loss for the fourth quarter of 2018 was $700,000 or $0.02 per share. Non-GAAP net income for the year ended December 31 was $63.2 million or $2.01 per diluted share.

Looking to the balance sheet. We are pleased with our balance sheet position as we exit the year. Our cash portfolio, including cash and short-term investments, was $124.9 million as of December 31, 2018, up from $46.5 million at the end of 2017, primarily due to cash generated from operations. We remain vigilant and are focused on cash management and continue to closely monitor the discretionary spend to ensure utilization of cash is aligned with key strategic initiatives.

I'd now like to provide an update on our guidance for 2019. As Ramzi mentioned, we are currently in the process of updating our market projections and approach to the customer opportunity in front of us. Over the next few quarters, we have modest expectations for our revenue as we build a more robust and valuable business for the future. For 2019, we anticipate our revenue to be in the range of $24 million to $30 million, excluding possible litigation outcome. This range reflects our expectations regarding the timing and structure of new customer agreements and the related revenue treatment under ASC 606.

The majority of this revenue is structured as per-unit royalty contracts, which will enable us to build our revenue base in a more predictable manner over time. This range is intended to take into account fluctuations that may occur due to variability in our customers' unit shipment and as such, we expect the revenue will be heavily back-end loaded toward Q3 and Q4 based on seasonal trends.

As we look at calendar 2019, I would note that like many of our peers and those who follow the industry, we are carefully monitoring the conditions regarding overall global consumer demand and the potential impact of trade issues. This environment notwithstanding additional upside opportunities outside of litigation could come from the continued growth of our presence in the automotive ecosystem by addressing the mobile and wearables markets through our channel strategy and through IoT customers as haptics become a natural feature of commercial IoT products such as printers and home appliances.

Regarding our expense outlook for 2019, we now expect GAAP operating expenses between $56 million and $60 million. Included in this number is litigation expense of between $13 million and $15 million and non-cash stock-based compensation expense of between $6 million and $7 million for the year. Due to the full valuation allowance we continue to carry, we are forecasting cash tax expense for the year to be approximately $400,000.

As a reminder, we define non-GAAP net income as GAAP income adjusted to reflect cash tax, less stock-based compensation and restructuring expenses. We expect 2019 non-GAAP net loss to be between $19 million and $28 million. As we exit the year, I am pleased with the financial results we achieved in 2018, the pedigree of new customers we added during the year and the continuing positive trends I see in our pipeline, which further demonstrates the expanded adoption of haptic.

At this time, we'd like to open up the call for questions. Brad?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Charlie Anderson with Dougherty & Co.

Charlie Anderson -- Dougherty & Co. -- Analyst

Yeah, thank you for taking my questions and welcome Ramzi. Maybe just want to start there Ramzi. I wonder if you could give us a little bit of a view from your side of the table in terms of why you joined Immersion, what you saw here, if you're successful, what this all looks like at the end of the day? Maybe the size of the market from your perspective would be interesting. And then I'm also curious, we're sort of borrowing from your prior experience at Dolby and Nokia, if there's some practices that you employed there that you could see bringing to Immersion that maybe they weren't doing before? And then I have a follow-up with Nancy.

Ramzi Haidamus -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. My attraction to Immersion comes from my 20-plus years and interest in immersive technologies. I joined Dolby because of my love for audio, surround sound, the movies and technologies that get you immersed in the experience you're in. I followed that up with video investments at Dolby and then later on with high-definition voice. Later on with Nokia, as you know, I launched the virtual reality program, which centered around AR and VR. That history of mine will include my expertise in licensing technology, intellectual property and equally importantly, my personal passion for exciting immersive technologies.

When I looked at the demonstrations and the demos and the technology from Immersion, there wasn't a whole lot of difference in the excitement that I experienced before relative to the excitement I experienced when I played around with the, for example, gaming demos that we have here, which are truly outstanding and I could say some consumers have never seen anything like it. So these are all technologies that will be in the pipeline that we'll hope to bring to the market in the future.

So that's as far as my personal interest. Now in terms of my experience and what I can bring to the table, what's clear to me is that Immersion is at the cusp of a significant growth and adoption of haptics broadly in the market, whether it's automotive, feedback and steering wheels and screens and pads where automotive companies are realizing that for safety measures the tactile feedback is equally important to visual feedback. This is a significant play for Immersion equally. So in the mobile business, we are so far used to a very rudimentary type of haptics, but there could be much smarter and higher definition haptics that we could experience in mobile to make the experience far more attractive and far more immersive.

Beyond the market that we're in today, the IoT market opens up quite a bit of opportunities whether it's home printers, commercial opportunities, home appliances and beyond, including wearables, we're looking at some significant use of haptics depending on the market and its applicability. In fact if I have any challenges right now, it's going to be to focus automated resources on the areas of high-growth, high profitability and say no to others that might have haptics, but not have a significant play for the Company.

So that gives you a feel of how I joined and what I see in front of us. In terms of applying some of the best practices from Dolby, certainly one of the key values that companies like Immersion can bring to the marketplace is the technology alongside the patent portfolio. We have shown significant success and a track record in licensing our patents. I would like to see an equal effort put in bringing technologies so that we help our customers bring a much more immersive technology haptic experience than they would otherwise should they develop it in on their own or buy it from another source. So there is a R&D effort that we can do to bring value to the marketplace, so it's no longer a patent assertion, but it's also a value-creation game into the marketplace.

Charlie Anderson -- Dougherty & Co. -- Analyst

Great. Thank you so much for that color. And then Nancy, on the guidance, you mentioned I think it's $27 million (ph) in the midpoint that you mentioned it's going to be predominantly the per unit, you did almost effectively $27 million on the dot per unit in 2018. So I guess, is the underlying assumption here that is effectively flat and you're assuming zero for per unit? Or there's things that are going to be different about 2019 versus 2018 on the per unit line that are worth mentioning? And also just the seasonality, we did get sort of a snapshot of the seasonality of per unit in 2018, I wonder if there's anything different to think about for 2019? Thanks.

Nancy Erba -- Chief Financial Officer

Sure. So in 2018, we -- as we were driving adoption and seeing adoption of haptics in certain markets, some of our per unit agreements says we talked about in the past actually had minimum commitment component. As we're seeing the adoption become more mainstream and discussions with our customers are evolving, we're finding that it benefits both of us in certain cases to move away from some of those minimums. So in 2018, you saw the impact of that in that royalty line that you're referring to.

In 2019, we expect to see less of those types of minimum commitment. There may still be certain markets and certain agreements where we and the customer agree that a minimum is appropriate, but we believe that the adoption, the rate it is today that going per unit certainly provides us a more sustainable and predictable ongoing revenue.

Charlie Anderson -- Dougherty & Co. -- Analyst

Okay. And then on seasonality?

Nancy Erba -- Chief Financial Officer

On seasonality, I think, fairly consistently Q3 and Q4, we expect to be much more heavily weighted. And that again with 606, we're estimating each quarter the number of units that our customers will ship. And as we look at the customer base and the markets in which they play, we think Q3 and Q4 are definitely going to be more heavily weighted this year.

Charlie Anderson -- Dougherty & Co. -- Analyst

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Anthony Stoss with Craig-Hallum.

Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Hey, Ramzi and Nancy, maybe on a comparable basis or factoring in 606, can you take us through Nancy on a year-over-year basis, what you expect to be down, if smartphone categories going to be down, if auto's going to grow, gaming down, miscellaneous down? I'm just curious on what you expect to grow and be down? And then, on several attempts through multiple CEOs were to -- try to bring in a -- trying a handset deal, now going in the way of the driver IC guys, what do you think has led to this lack of ability to sign the Chinese handset makers so far? And then I have one more follow-up after that.

Nancy Erba -- Chief Financial Officer

Okay. I'll take the first and then I'll let Ramzi go and talk about China. So by market, certainly the mobile market in 2018 was very heavily weighted to an agreement we signed in Q1 with Apple. I would expect the mobile market to be certainly flat to down, excluding any litigations that may come through, but down on a comparable basis. I am caveating that a little bit because you saw today that we signed the agreement with Dongwoon and we're going to be needing to watch that agreement and others that we signed to see how quickly that adoption grows. So I'm going to stay flattish on mobile until we understand more how those contracts evolve.

On gaming, we are likely going to continue to be at about the same level we are today on a percentage basis until and if we see new platforms coming out in the gaming market, which will then drive as you are aware, controllers, refreshes from the tiered controller suppliers that we licensed. VR continues to remain a nascent market for us. As Ramzi mentioned that we do have a lot of great technology in that market that we are going to be trying to bring to market and hopefully find a path forward there. But VR, as we're all watching, tends to be adopted a little bit more slowly than we have seen historically.

Automotive, I would say, is really one that we're extremely excited about. We have licensed, we believe, the majority -- of the vast majority of all tiered suppliers where you're seeing haptics today adopted in cars. As that market grows and as that adoption grows, we will grow along with it. We do have a good pipeline of additional customers we're looking to join forces with. So I would say automotive is one to continue to watch to look and grow. And as Ramzi mentioned, I think the final market that we're excited about is IoT.

Ramzi Haidamus -- President and Chief Executive Officer

As far as the plane to China, I think it goes without saying that historically as most companies have attempted to license their patents with China, have met with some difficulty at one level or another. It is different when you bring in actual technology solutions that the OEM need and want to differentiate with. But when you have a pure patent licensing play, it becomes quite challenging for reasons that are pretty well known in the marketplace.

Our IC channel strategy is an experiment. It is the first time we do this. In fact I could point a very few companies have done this before and so I have to congratulate the team at Immersion for the success. The goal here is to try to make the patent license very convenient and available through our IT channel partners whom the Chinese OEMs must interact with anyway. So there's a cost-savings measure here for us. So we don't have to create the sales force going after each one of these OEMs. Second having a channel partner that provides this throughput license at a very convenient pre-negotiated rate and pre-negotiated term makes the acquisition by the OEM of the license very fast and convenient. We are going to have to have a wait-and-see attitude.

This is an experiment. We hope that it yields the results we want. In the meantime, we do have a parallel strategy in the works. As we mentioned, we're going to be investing and creating technologies to be adding to the patent licenses, so that there is tact (ph) value add from Immersion. This is something -- this is how the Company started and we'd like to go back over the roots of being innovative and bringing differentiable competitive technologies to save our customers whether Chinese or otherwise, the cost of developing it themselves and that would go along with the patent licenses.

Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Great. And then as a follow-up, Ramzi. Your willingness to enter an agreement (inaudible) does that indicate in any way, shape or form a waning demand for haptics? You're able to give that before, now you're willing to give that up. And then Nancy, if you can just confirm or suggest whether or not you have anything in the 2019 guide from Apple?

Ramzi Haidamus -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I see the per unit with no minimum deal as a win-win for both us and our customers. For us, we want to provide our shareholders with long-term predictable revenue increase. The minimum deals provide a very significant lumpiness, especially with 606 where you're recognizing the revenue in advance, you're recognizing it in short-term and it provides for very lumpy, unpredictable revenue until all the minimums have been paid up.

As long as cash is not a significant issue, which it isn't today for us, there is very little reason for us to push for these no minimums. Remember this is patent's license. This not a technology license where our channel is a marketing tool for our technology. If it was, there would be different dynamic. This is a strict patent licenses. Therefore the marketing element here is less than what it would've been had it been a technology license. So it comes back to it being strictly a business finance decision to take on a royalty revenue profile that fits our desired long-term profile that fits with our long-term of view with the shareholders as well.

Our customers are frankly open to both. Dongwoon has taken a deal with minimum royalty. Others choose not to, and we are flexible and we're not pushing anyone in any one direction. We just want to highlight that our preference, if our customers agree to is to have a per-unit royalty with no minimum.

Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

And Nancy?

Nancy Erba -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes, on Apple, there is ongoing revenue in our AOP for 2019 from Apple, yes.

Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Josh Nichols with B. Riley FBR.

Josh Nichols -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst

Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask a little bit -- I know in the release you talked about moving a little bit over time toward more consistent profitability. How much of a needle-mover can really be auto and gaming, given the guide where you probably need to get to about nearly double the revenue level -- the level of revenue to kind of be breakeven on a consistently basis, excluding any large litigation settlements?

Ramzi Haidamus -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Let me take that and I'll take it over to Nancy. The automotive space for us is exciting for multiple reasons. First, the ASP on a per unit is significantly higher than the mobile, which is that goes about saying, but it's important to highlight it. So the growth curve is going to be significantly more weighted on the automotive than mobile on a per unit basis. So we're excited by this.

Second, we -- as Nancy mentioned earlier in the script, we are -- we have licensed over -- well over 50% of the providers into the mobile -- into the automotive channel. This provides for up and coming revenue over the next several quarters, which should add to our topline.

Thirdly our R&D team is focused on providing technology solutions that will accompany the patent licenses in the future, thereby having the automotive companies come to us for solutions that excite consumers and bring value and is not just a mobile, is not just a patent license. So that's really our strategy there with the automotive.

I would say gaming is a bit further out. We are developing and have developed technology in gaming, but the cycle here is a bit longer term. As you know, the gaming console launch every few years, so we need to wait for the next console launch for it to provide us with a kicker, but we have faith that we have very competitive technology that will differentiate us from what otherwise might be developed at these companies and we believe they're going to want our exciting technology.

With that, I'll turn it over to Nancy.

Nancy Erba -- Chief Financial Officer

I think you covered it great. Joshua, anything --

Josh Nichols -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst

Yes, that more than answer my question. I did want to ask, so you gave good color regarding the cadence of the revenue for 2019, but should we expect that maybe the expense side is a little bit more front-half weighted as opposed to the revenue side given that the trial is approaching in May and that's probably going to be your highest portion of litigation spend?

Nancy Erba -- Chief Financial Officer

Yes, that's a great point. The litigation spend definitely will be loaded to the front half of the year, because of the Mate trial with Samsung. And then, Q1 tends to have the majority of stock-based comp although that is a non-cash charge.

Josh Nichols -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst

And then last question for me. Any high-level commentary you could provide as far as the rationale given the upcoming trial? Also looks like expanding the pursuit to go after a new German patent as well as opposed to just in the US?

Ramzi Haidamus -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Our cases remain on track and we continue to feel confident in our portfolio and the strength of our position in each. As you know, the next mediation discussion is scheduled for March 21 with Samsung. Furthermore, the German action is a newly -- is regarding a newly issued patent in Germany and this is the counterpart to the 051 US patent added to the US case and one we used in the Apple case. It is a matter of course that we would this patent to the overall litigation strategy. We continue to feel confident in our position and we're -- if we were unable to reach an agreement prior, the jury selection is scheduled to begin in May 2019.

Josh Nichols -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And we have no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to our management for any closing remarks.

Ramzi Haidamus -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you and thank you everybody for joining us on this call today, whether live or via webcast. I look forward to having the opportunity to meet with many of you in the near future. Thanks again.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.

Duration: 35 minutes

Call participants:

Jennifer Jarman -- Investor Relations

Ramzi Haidamus -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Nancy Erba -- Chief Financial Officer

Charlie Anderson -- Dougherty & Co. -- Analyst

Anthony Stoss -- Craig-Hallum -- Analyst

Josh Nichols -- B. Riley FBR -- Analyst

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