One possible reason that Samsung chose a Qualcomm SoC for their Galaxy S4 phone was brought to our attention a few days ago and SemiAccurate looked in to it. The interesting bit is that while there is definitely something there, the direction of the financial benefits may not be as one-sided as they initially appear.
The idea is simple enough, Samsung uses Qualcomm SoCs and radios in the Galaxy S4 (SGS4) for some markets rather than their own Exynos Octa. Samsung has not publicly stated the reasoning as to why this external part is being used, but most speculate it is because the Samsung LTE radios are either not ready or not up to snuff. We went in to this and a few related scenarios in our earlier article so we won’t go back over the technical issues here. Suffice it to say there are technical challenges facing Samsung and they likely forced some of the choices made.
There is one other factor that we did not consider, and while it changes nothing on the technical side of our previous analysis, it has massive implications on the financial side. Why and to whom? That is a simple question without an easy answer.
Note: The following is analysis for professional level subscribers only.
Disclosures: Charlie Demerjian and Stone Arch Networking Services, Inc. have no consulting relationships, investment relationships, or hold any investment positions with any of the companies mentioned in this report.
Charlie Demerjian
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