In the recent past, Samsung has always sold their flagship devices with either an Exynos or Qualcomm chipset, depending on the region the device is sold in. Those premium Galaxy devices featuring Qualcomm chipsets are normally sold in the American market, while the Exynos-powered ones are generally sold in the European market.
However, the Exynos chipsets continuously lagging behind in performance and this performance gap to Qualcomm growing especially in the Galaxy S22 series, might be one of the reasons Samsung has struck out a new deal with Qualcomm that will have the South Korean company make more Qualcomm-powered smartphones.
It is still unclear whether the Galaxy S23 series will only feature Qualcomm chipsets, however, the Galaxy S22 series has 75% of its devices being powered by Qualcomm, which is already a significant increase compared to the Galaxy S21 series which had a more even distribution between Exynos and Qualcomm powered variants.
Qualcomm’s CEO, Cristiano Amon has already reported that Qualcomm chipsets will feature more in premium Samsung phones moving forward. As the company already sits at 75% share for this year’s Galaxy S22 series, it looks more and more likely that the Galaxy S23 series might all be Qualcomm powered this time round, or very close to it.
In a press release published jointly by the two companies, they explain that their existing partnership is being extended to 2030, as well as being expanded in scope. The deal also covers the extension of their patent licence agreement for 3G, 4G, 5G, and future 6G tech as well as touching on the agreement to “expand their collaboration with Snapdragon platforms for future premium Samsung Galaxy products.”
Anon mentions that the partnership will not only cover smartphones alone but also other Galaxy products as well including Galaxy books, Windows PCs, Galaxy tablets, future extended reality devices and other devices.
Whether this new partnership with Qualcomm will mark the end for Exynos is difficult to ascertain at this point, however, Samsung remains adamant that the Exynos line-up will continue to exist in other form factors such as wearables. The company further notes that a reorganization is necessary to get back Exynos on its feet.
There are also rumours of Samsung creating a team tasked with developing a new custom chip from scratch, which we covered here. The custom chipset is expected to be released in 2025 which might also be among the reasons the company is dropping the Exynos variants from their premium segment for the time being in favour of Qualcomm ones that are outsourced.
The Galaxy foldables, the other series in Samsung’s premium segment, remain untouched by the changes, as they have always featured Qualcomm chipsets from the get-go. The upcoming Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4 will also follow suit, featuring the new Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset.
With the Exynos chipsets seemingly being removed from the premium category, we might start seeing more of them being packed in the midrange and entry-level devices, where high performance is not necessarily crucial if the device compensates in other areas like the camera set-up or an affordable price.
