Qualcomm put its partners in a tough spot, including Samsung, as it is apparently rumored to have charged $160 for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. This makes the San Diego’s chipset more expensive than what Apple was paying for its A16 Bionic. Unfortunately, things may not improve with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 launch, as one tipster claims that the latter will be pricier than its predecessor.
Some Qualcomm partners may have little choice but to save costs and use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 or switch to MediaTek’s Dimensity range
Switching to TSMC’s 4nm N4P process for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is a costly endeavor, but we already saw the drawbacks and the criticism that followed when Qualcomm relied on Samsung’s foundry to launch the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. On Weibo, Digital Chat Station claims that the upcoming SoC will be more expensive than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, putting Qualcomm’s partners in a tough spot. While he does not explicitly mention the exact price of the chipset, he does state that phone makers will have to make one of two choices.
Either they can save costs and downgrade to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for future launches or switch to MediaTek, a firm that is also in the midst of launching its flagship SoC mass produced on the same TSMC N4P architecture, the Dimensity 9300. It is possible that MediaTek charges its smartphone partners less for its flagship silicon, shortening its margins but potentially obtaining more business than Qualcomm by switching to this business strategy.
Then again, it is not so easy to challenge Qualcomm’s market and the value that comes with it because consumers easily recognize the Snapdragon brand name. However, the Dimensity 9300 has one advantage that no other smartphone SoC has to offer at this time; support for the faster LPDDR5T RAM. Additionally, its unique CPU configuration, where four Cortex-X4 cores power it, may beat the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in multi-threaded benchmarks, but the chipset will likely lose in the efficiency battle to its rival.
Even if Qualcomm charges $200 per Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, companies like Samsung, Xiaomi, and others have a reputation to mention and will offer their customers the very best in Android smartphone hardware, even if it means the decision ends up eating their margins.
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