Apple will continue to use modem chips from Qualcomm for next year’s iPhone 15 line-up, reports Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman.
The tech giant was expected to start equipping its smartphone line-up with its custom-build modems in 2023. Apparently, that plan has been delayed to 2024 or beyond.
Bloomberg says that Apple’s efforts have been stymied by prototype versions of the modems overheating and that the company wouldn’t begin a switch until 2024 at the earliest. Qualcomm continues to assume it will only receive minimal revenue contributions from Apple in fiscal 2025.
Apple currently uses Qualcomm modems. However, the tech giant Intel’s smartphone modem business in July 2019 and added 2,200 Intel engineers to its chipset operations globally.
In May 2021 analyst Ming-Chi Kuo told clients that the first Apple-designed 5G modem is likely to debut in 2023 iPhones.
“We predict that the iPhone will adopt Apple’s own design 5G baseband chips in 2023 at the earliest,” he said. “As Android sales in the high-end 5G phone market are sluggish, Qualcomm will be forced to compete for more orders in the low-end market to compensate for Apple’s order loss. When the supply constraints improve, MediaTek and Qualcomm will have less bargaining power over brands, resulting in significantly higher competitive pressure in the mid-to low- end market.”
Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today
