Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be 20% of the Samsung S25 costs as Exynos 2500 goes to Z Fold 7
All the trials and tribulations around which chipset will Samsung use for the Galaxy S25 series are now moot, as Korean media is reporting that the three phones there will only be powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.
Granted, reputed analyst Ming-Chi Kuo speculated that it has other options, such as boosting the yield of its 3nm Exynos 2500 chip, but supply chain sources now say it won't be able to do it on time.
Samsung will reportedly only be ready with the desired quantity and quality of Exynos 2500 processors in the first half of 2025 as opposed to the last quarter of this year, as previously thought.
Thus, the Exynos 2500 chip will be used to lower the cost of Samsung foldable phones that are arriving in the second half of 2025, rather than the S25 series that will land early next year.
According to the Korean business publication Hankyung's sources, when Samsung's MX division was presented a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip made specifically for the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it was very impressed.
The team ultimately decided to battle the iPhone 16 series with a chipset that has a performance and power draw comparable to the upcoming A18 Pro processor of Apple, rather than bet on an Exynos 2500 to lower costs, as its chip is simply not there yet.
Since Samsung's application processor supply costs soared from about $5.7 billion in 2021 when the S21 series was introduced, to $8.7 billion last year, and 20% of its phone manufacturing costs now go to the processor, it wanted to mix Exynos with Snapdragon for the S25.
The introduction of Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16 series, however, changed those calculations, as Samsung wants to have a competitive AI product that only Qualcomm's chips would allow it to release for the time being.
As for the Exynos 2500 chipset, Samsung's foundry division has reportedly been tasked to "consolidate the substance of the cutting-edge foundry process below 3nm and secure competitiveness," with the goal to power the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7 with the new Exynos processor next year.
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