Can Samsung really ditch Qualcomm completely?

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Samsung will drop the Snapdragon 810 from the Galaxy S 6 in favor of the Exynos. Utilizing the Exynos is no surprise, but the fact that they would use it for all device variants is.

As you know, the Exynos processor is Samsung’s own processor, so one would think that Samsung would want to use it exclusively. However due to possible supply issues and/or the fact that it doesn’t play well with LTE, Samsung has always used Qualcomm Snapdragon processors for many regions.

However, there has been a lot of press on the Snapdragon 810 overheating, and Bloomberg’s report seems plausible based on that, but the question is if Samsung can really pull it off? The Galaxy S 6 is Samsung’s flagship, and they can’t fool around here. At the same time, they might not have a choice if the Snapdragon 810 is indeed overheating. At the same time, there is no guarantee that Samsung would be able to get the Exynos chip ready to cover all devices. Either way, there could be issues, so maybe they will just stay homegrown to better manage it.

However, ZDNet is now reporting that analysts believe that Samsung will not be able to completely eliminate Qualcomm. They believe there was an issue, but Qualcomm has solved it, and as a result, there is a 2 to 3 month delay. The belief is that the Galaxy S 6 will launch on time in Korea, but shipments to other regions will be delayed to catch up with Qualcomm. There was also another report last week that said that Samsung will actually use the Exynos for most of the early shipments, but transition to the Snapdragon as it becomes available.

This is going to be a very interesting situation. I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung never mentions the processor brand in any of the press materials when they unveil the Galaxy S 6 in March. This is a very crucial year for Samsung, and they cannot afford production delays or product complaints from customers.

source: ZDNet

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