The Exynos 2500 was supposed to be Samsung’s gateway towards reducing dependency on Qualcomm as the company was previously reported to adopt a dual-chipset launch strategy for the Galaxy S25 series. Unfortunately, not all plans can come to fruition, as an analyst states that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 might exclusively be used in the Korean giant’s 2025 flagship series because it might not ship the Exynos 2500 due to poor 3nm yields.
Qualcomm may take advantage of Samsung’s setback, raising Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 prices by up to 30 percent
Samsung was earlier rumored to have shown promise with the Exynos 2500, with the latter’s initial testing CPU and GPU results said to be better than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Unfortunately, the company has been reported on several occasions to be struggling with its 3nm GAA yields, and even though it is a potentially better manufacturing process to improve efficiency and limit current leakage, the low yields mean that Samsung cannot mass produce enough of these to be used in the Galaxy S25 series while reducing its production cost.
Now, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that Qualcomm will leverage Samsung’s setback to its advantage by raising the price of its Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 by up to 30 percent. The upcoming SoC was already hinted by a Qualcomm executive to be more expensive than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 due to the adoption of custom Oryon cores, but it is unconfirmed if this 30 percent premium will be applied on top of Qualcomm’s original quote.
Qualcomm will likely be the sole SoC supplier for the Samsung Galaxy S25 (vs. 40% for the S24), as the Exynos 2500 may not ship due to Samsung's lower-than-expected 3nm yield.
In addition to the significant increase in supply share, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will see a price…
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) June 17, 2024
Kuo also comments that since the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be mass produced on TSMC’s 3nm ‘N3E’ process, the Taiwanese semiconductor firm will benefit from this arrangement, as Qualcomm will give more orders to its supplier. In all of this, Samsung will incur the biggest loss, which only means that it will have to raise the prices of its Galaxy S25 family to compensate for the premium charged by Qualcomm.
News Source: Ming-Chi Kuo
