Qualcomm: iPhones won’t have an Apple modem by next year

In any case, Apple will not provide an Apple modem for a large part of its iPhones next year, says chip designer Qualcomm. The American company says that Qualcomm modems in iPhones will be finished in two years.

Qualcomm says in the discussion of his annual figures that the proportion of Qualcomm modems in the iPhone will remain high next year. “In terms of Apple revenue, we now expect to have the vast majority of 5G modems for the 2023 iPhones, while we previously assumed it was 20 percent.”

It has been clear for years that Apple has been working on its own modems. As part of a legal dispute, Qualcomm and Apple entered into an agreement to supply modems years ago. As a result, Intel stopped making modems for smartphones and Apple took over that division.

Qualcomm now says that Apple’s sales will virtually disappear in two years. “We believe Apple will contribute at least to our revenue in fiscal year 2025,” the company said. Fiscal 2025 begins at Qualcomm on October 1, 2024, which is when the iPhones of that year are likely to be released.

Apple has been making its own socs for iPhones for years and has also been making the gpu for those socs for some years now. Besides Qualcomm, Samsung also makes modems for smartphones, which are included in its own Exynos-socs and in Google’s Tensor-socs. MediaTek also makes its own modems for its socs.