After a little hiatus, Huawei has announced its latest flagship lineup, the Mate 60 series, which employs the company’s own Kirin 9000S CPU.
Qualcomm’s Chipsets
This means that Huawei is no longer reliant on Qualcomm for chipsets, potentially costing the American chipmaker billions of dollars.
Going back to its in-house Kirin chipset demonstrates that Huawei has no intention of backing down, despite the dreaded US trade restriction that prevents the phone maker from receiving any American 5G technology.
American 5G Technology
Although the Kirin 9000S cannot compete with the most powerful Snapdragon SoC in terms of performance or efficiency, it could help Huawei regain its footing.
Despite the US trade ban, Huawei was still one of Qualcomm’s largest clients for SoCs, thus this will be a severe blow to the latter.
Qualcomm has agreed to sell Huawei up to 25 million devices in 2022 and 40-42 million in 2023.
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Huawei expects to fully transition to Kirin SoCs in 2024, which means Qualcomm would lose 50 to 60 million shipments next year, which is a concerning number.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is projected to cost $180 per unit when it is released by Qualcomm. So, if the corporation loses 60 million Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 sales, it will lose a stunning $10.8 billion.
Huawei has not revealed any intentions to distribute Kirin SoCs to other Chinese phone makers, but if it does, it will most likely be less expensive than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which is expected to see a price increase this time.
Another competitor that Qualcomm must consider is the Exynos 2400, which will be available in a few markets with the Galaxy S24 series.
To read our blog on “Qualcomm vice president thinks cellphones can equal the quality of DSLR cameras,” click here
