Apple To Ditch Qualcomm Chips For Intel On IPhones: Reports

(RTTNews) - Tech giant Apple Inc. (AAPL) is reportedly planning to ditch Qualcomm Inc.'s (QCOM) modem chips in favor for Intel. Shares of Qualcomm fell 3 percent after the news.

According to 9to5mac.com, KGI reports that Apple will make Intel as the exclusive supplier of modem chips for its next-gen iPhones. KGI says Intel can meet Apple's technical requirements and offers more competitive prices.

Since iPhone 7, Apple has shared baseband chip orders for iPhones with Qualcomm and Intel. However, the recent legal tussle with Qualcomm has made Apple make the decision to give exclusive order for Intel. Last year, Apple accused Qualcomm of overcharging for chips and refusing to pay some $1 billion in promised rebates.

KGI says there is also a risk that Intel may not be ready for 5G networking as quickly as Qualcomm. Apple plans to improve LTE transmission speeds significantly by supporting 4×4 MIMO chipsets.

In the past, iPhone models with the Qualcomm baseband chipset performed better in benchmark tests than the model with the Intel chips. However, with if Intel becomes exclusive supplier of chips, this problem won't exist in the 2018 iPhones.