The Samsung Galaxy S23 series could see Snapdragon chips in more regions

Samsung has used both Qualcomm’s Snapdragon and in-house Exynos chips in its flagship phones over the years. That’s also true of the company’s Galaxy S22 series, which will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip in markets like the US, while many of the devices destined for other markets like Europe got Exynos 2200. India received a Snapdragon chip in the Samsung Galaxy S22 series for the first time, and it looks like future Galaxy S series flagships will carry a Snapdragon chip in more regions as the company strengthens its partnership with Qualcomm. The company collaboration includes expanding the use of “Snapdragon platforms for future premium Samsung Galaxy products, including smartphones, PCs, tablets, extended reality and more.”

Qualcomm’s press release for the media doesn’t specifically mention the Galaxy S23 flagship or the regions where it will carry the Snapdragon chip, but the company’s CEO Cristiano Amon made it clear during the earnings call that more regions will support Snapdragon Galaxy flagship products – specifically S23 and beyond – will be powered as a result of this multi-year agreement.

A multi-year agreement to power more Galaxy flagships worldwide

Qualcomm CEO Amon shared additional information to bring more clarity to the matter. Here’s a transcript of the Qualcomm CEO’s statement while answering some questions during the earnings call:

Michael, thanks for the question. Yes. Look, it’s — alongside record auto and IoT sales, the Samsung deal is probably my favorite thing of the quarter. And that’s how I would describe the growth opportunities for the chipset business.

If you recall, over the many years of this relationship we would share on average about 40% compared to their internal solution with the Galaxy S22 that existed before this agreement was signed. Our share increases to around 75%. And now we’re announcing a multi-year agreement to power Samsung Galaxy smartphones worldwide.

So excited about that. It offers incredible stability for our mobile business. I can’t think of anything better to validate our strategy of focusing on Share of Wallet in Premium and High Tier than this agreement.

So very, very exciting. I remember – I want to remember all this, it’s a very good trade. When I think of the silicon content of a Snapdragon 8 series, at least equal to or better than the sales and earnings of a 5 modem for another OEM.

Now, the second part of this multi-year agreement is the growth opportunity that comes with our diversification. So it expands beyond Galaxy smartphones to include Galaxy books, Windows PCs, Galaxy tablets, future extended reality devices, and other devices. So a very important agreement, very excited and the companies really got a lot closer.

But Samsung isn’t giving up on Exynos

The fact that Samsung splits shipments of its flagship devices between two different chipsets doesn’t sit well with consumers. That’s because there’s often a distinct performance difference between Snapdragon and the Exynos-based variants of the same phone. We ended up testing the Galaxy S22 Ultra with both chipsets only to find out that the Snapdragon Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is way better than the Exynos. The new partnership between the two companies may lead to the launch of Snapdragon-powered Galaxy flagships in more regions, but it doesn’t guarantee it for all buyers in every market.

This could mean that the company will continue to put its in-house chips in its flagship phones in select markets. A better plan – maybe a long-term plan – would back off for a while and come back stronger with better chipsets. If anything, this “multi-year” partnership gives more time to invest and make meaningful improvements to the SoC. The company can also leverage its recent partnership with AMD to produce more powerful mobile GPUs. The idea of ​​seeing more Qualcomm-powered Galaxy flagships will certainly bring a smile to many faces, but it will be interesting to see how the in-house chip makes a comeback with more raw power and features in the future.

Source: Qualcomm, Earnings Call Transcript

Featured image: Samsung Galaxy S22