What you need to know
- Qualcomm has confirmed that the upcoming Galaxy S23 series will be powered by a Snapdragon processor worldwide.
- This was revealed by Qualcomm's executives during the company's recent earnings call.
- Samsung has inked a multiyear partnership with Qualcomm that will see future flagship Galaxy phones use Snapdragon chipsets.
Samsung's Galaxy smartphones have traditionally used Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipsets, but these models are only available in select markets like the U.S., while other markets get the Exynos variants. However, this appears to be changing in the future.
During Qualcomm's recent investor call, chief financial officer Akash Palkhiwala confirmed that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S23 models would be powered by Snapdragon chipsets globally. This means the South Korean tech giant may abandon the Exynos processor in future flagship handsets. Palkhiwala noted that Snapdragon chips accounted for 75% of the Galaxy S22 models available in the market.
Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm president and CEO, backed up Palkhiwala's confirmation, saying that future flagship Galaxy phones worldwide will use Snapdragon chipsets.
"In handsets, we entered into a new multiyear agreement with Samsung, expanding the use of Snapdragon platforms for future premium Samsung Galaxy products globally," Amon said during the earnings call.
The revelation lends credence to a previous claim by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who earlier speculated that Samsung would forego its own Exynos chipset in favor of Qualcomm's flagship processor for all Galaxy S22 successors in all markets. Amon's statement indicates this may also be the case for succeeding models after the Galaxy S23 series.
This may not mean much to Galaxy fans in the United States who already own Snapdragon variants of Samsung's flagship devices. But for consumers who have had to grapple with Exynos-powered models elsewhere, this new development sounds promising. One of the main gripes users had with Exynos-toting Galaxy phones was the slower performance of these models than their Snapdragon counterparts. Dropping the Exynos chip completely is a step in the right direction, although it's possible that the chip may still be used in a few markets, even if that number is dwindling.
Shortly after Qualcomm confirmed its partnership with Samsung, an unlocked U.S. version of the Galaxy S23+ running on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor appeared on Geekbench. According to the benchmarking results, the phone has at least 8GB of RAM and runs Android 13.
There's still no official word on when Samsung's next contenders for the best Android phones will see the light of day, but previous rumors claimed an early February unveiling.
The Galaxy S22 is one of our favorite smartphones this year, and it's only getting better thanks to the new Android 13 update. The update includes numerous new features as well as revised privacy and security settings.
