Qualcomm said 5G-ready version of its Snapdragon 4 chips will assist the chipset maker in ramping up its effort to put 5G mobile phones within reach of billions of people.
The U.S. chipmaker launched on Thursday a 5G-ready version of its Snapdragon 4 chips that will run on cheaper phones, priced at $125-$250, that will hit markets in the first quarter of next year, Reuters reported.
“It will deliver on the promise of making 5G accessible to all smartphone users,” said Qualcomm president Cristiano Amon in an opening video address to the IFA consumer technology fair in Berlin.
The three-day event, which attracted 240,000 visitors last year, is closed to the public this year due to the pandemic. Instead, it is being held as a ‘hybrid’ event featuring a mix of online and in-person events for the trade and media.
Cristiano Amon also announced a 5G platform to support ‘always on, always connected’ laptops that are increasingly in demand among people working at home who need fast, secure connections to log in to company networks or join video conference calls.
“We may be closer to escape velocity because of what happened,” he told Reuters in an interview, predicting the growth in connected PCs would outlast the pandemic as consumers demand features to match those on the best smartphones.
Qualcomm, the world’s biggest supplier of mobile phone chips, says 5G networks – which enable ultra-fast downloads and run connected devices and factories – are being built far faster than previously expected.
Eighty mobile operators have deployed 5G, Amon said, forecasting that 750 million 5G smartphones would ship in 2022 and that 5G connections would top 1 billion a year later – two years faster than was the case with 4G.
At last year’s IFA, Qualcomm made a splash by launching 5G chipsets for mid-priced phones. The Snapdragon 4 product completes its 5G range, targeting a potential audience of over 3.5 billion people.
Smartphone makers Motorola, OPPO and Xiaomi have signed up to make 5G phones with Snapdragon 4.
Qualcomm is also partnering with Taiwan’s Acer to market 5G-enabled PCs running on the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 5G platform, featuring multi-day battery life, enterprise-level security and high-end cameras and audio.
“With the extension of Qualcomm Technologies’ 5G Mobile Platform into the Snapdragon 4-series, we are positioned to deliver a more complete portfolio of 5G devices to our consumers, emphasizing our leadership in the 5G space,” said Sergio Buniac, president, Motorola.
“OPPO and Qualcomm Technologies have closely collaborated on the expansion of 5G. We are very happy that Qualcomm Technologies is scaling 5G technology to the Snapdragon 4-series,” said Tony Chen, founder and chief executive officer, OPPO.
“In scaling the deployment of 5G, we have introduced several 5G smartphones powered by Snapdragon 8-series and 7-series 5G mobile platforms,” Lei Jun, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Xiaomi, said.
