Smartphone chipset maker Qualcomm is one of the winners of TelecomLead.com Innovation Leaders 2020 for its strategy to drive business growth of 5G smartphone OEMs by offering cost-effective chipsets.
San Diego-based Qualcomm is the #1 supplier of processors for 5G smartphones and the modem chips for OEMs. 5G smartphone OEMs include Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, among others.
Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon is driving the 5G chipset initiatives at the chipset maker.
Qualcomm earlier introduced 5G chips for premium smartphones that were available to elite class of customers.
Recently, Qualcomm introduced Snapdragon 690. Phone makers such as HMD Global, the owner of the Nokia phone brand, LG Electronics and Lenovo Group’s Motorola plan to use the chips and will bring out 5G smartphones with a retail price tag of $300 to $500.
The U.S. chipmaker also launched a 5G-ready version of its Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 chips that will power cheaper smartphones, priced at $125-$250, that will hit markets in the first quarter of 2021.
“It will deliver on the promise of making 5G accessible to all smartphone users,” Qualcomm’s president, Cristiano Amon, said in an opening video address to the IFA consumer technology fair in Berlin.
Smartphone makers Motorola, OPPO and Xiaomi have signed up to make 5G phones with Snapdragon 4.
Eighty mobile operators have deployed 5G network. 750 million 5G smartphones would ship in 2022 and that 5G connections would top 1 billion a year later.
Despite a shipment decline, Qualcomm achieved strength in its smartphone AP ASPs (Average Selling Prices), thanks to 5G. Qualcomm’s smartphone AP ASP reached their highest in the last six years. 5G-attached APs accounted for over 35 percent of Qualcomm’s total smartphone AP shipments in Q2 2020, says Strategy Analytics.
Qualcomm has captured over 50 percent volume share in the 5G baseband market. Qualcomm is well-positioned to grow its baseband shipments and revenue further in H2 2020, driven by iPhone 5G models from Apple and mid-range Android 5G.
Winners of the TelecomLead.com Innovation Awards 2020 were selected by a group of technology journalists, analysts and telecom industry veterans. We are not disclosing their names since some of them have NDA-related issues.
