During the ongoing 2021 Investor Day event, Qualcomm on November 17 announced its upcoming next-gen processors for PC which will be launched to compete with Apple Silicon’s M series chips. However, as the events unfold further, the future plans for one of the most prominent chip maker’s modems are revealed as Apple will be coming up with its own modem chips in the foreseeable future.
The Future Plans
The Cupertino-based giant Apple has already announced its own modem chips which the company has been developing and working on for quite a long time. The current plan to bring those chips into the market is with 2023 iPhones. As Apple will start using its self-produced modem chips, Qualcomm’s modem business is sure to get hit by it. The CFO of Qualcomm, Akash Palkhiwala has also confirmed in a statement that the company will be providing only around 20% of modem chips to Apple. Simply told, 2023 will be the last time Qualcomm will be the sole supplier of modem chips for iPhones.
Qualcomm did describe it as a “planning assumption for forecast purposes” but it is hinted that the company is expecting the launch in 2023. On the other hand, Qualcomm is also planning to compete with Apple’s M series chips. Qualcomm is going to come up with its own ARM-based PC processors which will be designed by Nuvia. The upcoming processor by the company is claimed to set the performance benchmark for Windows PC.
Earlier Apple had to go on a legal battle with Qualcomm to shift to its self-produced modem chips which were settled in 2019. After the legal battle, Apple needed to source chips for its iPhones and thus entered into a multi-year partnership with Qualcomm. However, to achieve independence when it came to processors, Apple also started developing its own line of powerful processors.
