Because of the changes in the relationship of Samsung and Qualcomm, the latter is determined to make it bigger in the industry by helping to market other smartphones especially those made in China. As you all know, Samsung has ditched the overheating Snapdragon 810 by the chip maker and didn’t use it on the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge. The South Korean tech giant used its own Exynos chip instead and the result was a super fast performance and a big loss for Qualcomm.
Just recently, Qualcomm launched a special unit that would help smartphone makers in China to sell their products overseas. This comes as a surprise since the company used to have an antitrust case in China. Beijing is believed to be reducing dependence on foreign chip manufacturers but Qualcomm’s customers are mainly from China. It only makes sense that Qualcomm must strengthen its relationship now before more companies ditch them too.
Qualcomm offers licensing of its wireless patents and two-thirds of annual profits come from the patents. On the other hand, in China, smartphone makers are saying that Qualcomm was unfairly pricing its products and technology. Qualcomm was then asked to pay the $975 million antitrust fine. Because of this, the company’s Q2 fiscal profit went down by 46%.
The San Diego company wants to make things right now and good thing the Chinese phone makers have agreed to sign licensing agreements. Qualcomm also wants to help market these China-made smartphones like those from Huawei and Xiaomi. Doing this will attract more customers, therefore, more business from Qualcomm too.
Chinese phone makers selling in different markets overseas is not surprising. It is also impossible because there are regions that prefer them because of their affordability. Samsung and Apple may be the top two phone companies today but these mobile devices from China can compete with the other premium phones.
VIA: WSJ
