Samsung is going to start using Qualcomm’s processors again with its next flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S7.
If you cast your mind back to the start of the year, that was when news first emerged that Samsung was abandoning Qualcomm CPUs for the Galaxy S6, with the phone maker deciding to exclusively use its own Exynos chips (previously, Samsung had used both Exynos and Snapdragon).
This was apparently due to the fact that the chip in question, the Snapdragon 810, was overheating during testing.
However, whatever the issue was with Snapdragon, Qualcomm has apparently now fixed it, because the Snapdragon 820 will be on board the Galaxy S7, according to the Electronic Times (via a Reuters report).
The South Korean newspaper got this information from the usual anonymous sources, who said that with the Galaxy S7, Samsung will use the Qualcomm processor for the flagship handsets sold in the US and China. Other markets will get an Exynos chip, so the sources claim.
Things moving back to business as usual would hardly be a surprising state of affairs though -- it was a major contract for Qualcomm to lose, and it makes sense that the firm would do its absolute upmost to get back on board with Samsung.
Samsung hasn’t performed well of late, as you may have noticed, with profit dropping by eight percent in the company’s results for Q2 2015 -- and that’s the fifth successive drop in profits witnessed by the company.
Despite being well received by critics, the Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge haven’t made the waves in the smartphone market that Samsung hoped for. Even the old iPhone 5S is outselling both of Samsung’s flagship handsets currently, according to uSwitch’s mobile tracker, and that Apple smartphone is in third place behind the iPhone 6, and the iPhone 6S in pole position.
