Goodbye, Qualcomm! Samsung wants to save billions of dollars with another solution

Samsung’s dependence on Qualcomm has grown significantly in recent years. The South Korean giant has maintained Qualcomm chips in all series of foldable smartphones and the Galaxy S23 generation is powered exclusively by Snapdragon processors.

But it seems that Samsung wants to reverse this dependence and, at the same time, save billions of dollars with a very simple solution: integrating its proprietary Exynos chip into more smartphones in its portfolio.

Samsung spent more than $8 billion on chips in 2023

According to a financial report from Samsung Electronics, the company’s mobile division spent $8.87 billion on processors last year. In a direct currency conversion, we are talking about 8.1 billion euros.

The same report states that the South Korean brand had a cost increase in this component of 3.1%, compared to the previous year. It is also mentioned in this document that processors for smartphones “increased by around 30% compared to 2022”.

Another report from the company, also released, shows why Samsung has seen an increase in the cost of processors. The document says that devices with Exynos chips sold in the fourth quarter of 2023 registered a total of just 13 million units sold, 48% less than in 2022.

These numbers reflect the brand’s commitment, last year, to equip premium smartphones with Qualcomm processors and use MediaTek chips for more affordable models.

With there being less supply of new Galaxy smartphones equipped with Samsung’s Exynos chip, sales were lower, as would be expected with this type of strategy.

Year 2024 marks a turning point in the use of processors

But 2024 will mark the beginning of a turning point in the selection of processors, according to the SamMobile website.

All because the South Korean giant will start to integrate its proprietary chip into many more new smartphone models.

In fact, the new strategy has already been put into practice in some of its most popular models and also in the premium segment. The Galaxy S24 and S24+ are sold in Europe with the Exynos 2400 chip.

But the recently launched Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 also arrived with an Exynos processor, which indicates that this will be a strong bet by the brand for more smartphones in its more affordable line.