What you need to know
- The Samsung Galaxy S23 series is rumored to stick with only one brand of chipset.
- Samsung's next-gen flagship smartphones are expected to be powered solely by Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
- This means next year's premium Galaxy phones might skip Samsung's in-house Exynos SoCs entirely.
Samsung has a habit of launching its Galaxy flagship phones with one of two processor brands inside — Snapdragon or Exynos — depending on which market they're bound for. Next year, however, Samsung's next Galaxy S flagship series could go all-in on Qualcomm's chipset.
According to reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Samsung will forego its own Exynos chipset in favor of Qualcomm's flagship processor for all Galaxy S22 successors in all markets. This means that the Exynos line may be removed from all variants of the Samsung Galaxy S23 series.
Kuo claimed in a series of tweets that the processor for the Galaxy S23 series will be sourced solely from Qualcomm. The semiconductor giant's next-gen 5G chipset is dubbed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which will presumably be built based on TSMC's 4nm node. The chipset is also expected to power many of the best Android phones set to launch in the future.
According to Kuo, Samsung made the decision due to Exynos' underwhelming performance compared to Snapdragon. Samsung's upcoming 4nm-based chipset dubbed Exynos 2300 "can't compete with SM8550 in all aspects," the analyst said.
The successor to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC is said to be optimized for TSMC's design guidelines, giving it a leg up over the current model in terms of computing power and power efficiency.
If this is true, it could signal a departure from what Samsung has done in recent memory. The Galaxy S22 series models, for example, were released in Europe, Africa, and some parts of Asia with Exynos 2200 onboard. Meanwhile, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered variants were launched elsewhere.
But the writing has been on the wall since earlier this year. The India market, which has conventionally seen the release of Exynos variants of Samsung's devices, got the Galaxy S22 series' Snapdragon flavors in February.
Kuo says that this pivotal move will bolster Qualcomm’s high-end Android market share in 2023. Android Central has contacted Samsung for comment and will update this article when we hear back.
