The new report adds that two business units of Samsung have already reached an agreement to “increase the proportion” of Exynos processors in its smartphones. So we should see more Galaxy smartphones featuring Exynos chipsets next year.
Samsung to more than double the use of Exynos processors in Galaxy smartphones
Samsung is one of the very few companies with a chip fabrication plant. The Korean behemoth is, in fact, second only to Taiwan’s TSMC in terms of chip manufacturing market share. The Taiwanese company doesn’t make its own chips but manufactures for the likes of Qualcomm, Apple, MediaTek, and many more. Samsung also manufactures chips for others but mostly its in-house Exynos processors. However, a bulk of Samsung smartphones still run on chipsets from Qualcomm and MediaTek. The company uses the former’s Snapdragon solutions in its flagship models, sometimes all over the world, sometimes in select markets. For instance, the Galaxy S21 series uses the Snapdragon 888 in the US and China and the Exynos 2100 in Europe and other markets. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Flip 3 foldables, meanwhile, use the Snapdragon 888 globally. That’s because Samsung’s Exynos processors have evidently underperformed competing Snapdragon counterparts. The gap has been wider when it comes to flagship products. But the company has been able to close down that gap in recent years. The upcoming Exynos 2200 is expected to be on par with the Snapdragon equivalent, or perhaps go one better than it. So it shouldn’t be surprising if the Fold 3 and Flip 3 successors feature an Exynos processor across the world. But, while Samsung had a reason to not use Exynos processors in its flagship offerings, more and more MediaTek chipsets have been making it into the company’s budget and mid-range offerings in recent times. That’s certainly not good for the company’s reputation. The mid-range Exynos 1080, which launched late last year, hasn’t made it into any Samsung device so far. Instead, the company has used competing solutions from MediaTek and Qualcomm in its mid-range smartphones. That could change very soon.
Exynos processors have undergone some optimizations
The new report suggests that Samsung System LSI has made some necessary optimizations to its Exynos processors. “I know that the 5G communication and heat issue, which were the most problematic issues in Exynos, have been resolved in the next production,” the report quotes an industry insider. So they should now be able to better compete against rivals. As such, Samsung Mobile should now be more confident using Exynos processors in its smartphones rather than opt for rivals’ solutions. But only time will tell whether this push delivers the desired results for the company.
