Qualcomm, known for making tiny but powerful things, has made a tiny announcement about a big thing—Apple just signed a three-year contract with the company to use Qualcomm 5G modems for smartphone launches in 2024, 2025, and 2026. What’s more, the terms and conditions are similar to the companies’ previous agreement.
This deal could easily represent 20% share of chipset supply for the smartphone launch in 2026.
The global patent license agreement, effective as of April 2019, remains unchanged—direct license between Apple and Qualcomm Incorporated: six-year term, with two-year option to extend.
Simultaneously, and not to distract, we’re sure, Apple announced a new A17 Pro chip for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. The new iPhone 15 and 15 Plus will also have the A16 Bionic, introduced last year in the iPhone 14 Pro models. Apple also said the A17 Pro got the “biggest redesign in the history of Apple GPUs.”
Our colleague David Harold covers the iPhone 15 Pro in more detail.
So, new chip, new GPU, new modem, and new (but same) modem deal with Qualcomm.