Several reports have said that Apple intends to abandon other vendors and use its own internal 5G modem on future iPhones. Apple apparently made big investments to come up with its own 5G modem for the A-Bionic chipset. But the move failed, and the company will continue to rely on Qualcomm for 5G modems. Apple does not want to rely on third-party companies for modems. An internal 5G modem would also mean lower manufacturing costs. However, this will not happen any time soon.
Qualcomm is expected to ship only 20% of the 5G modems for iPhones in 2023
According to the latest report from Apple analyst Ming Chi-Kuo, Qualcomm would ship about 20% of 5G modems for iPhones in 2023 alone. But now the full shipping of the 5G modems during the year will be made exclusively by Qualcomm.
For the unconscious, back in 2019, Apple acquired the modem chip business from Intel and intended to move away from Qualcomm. There was also a major legal battle between Apple and Qualcomm over the license fees. While it ended, it would definitely have soured the relationship between the two.
Apple is probably not going to retire completely here. Although the move did not immediately bear fruit, Apple is expected to continue working to develop its 5G modem. The best thing for Apple is that it has a huge pool of funds to do so. Other companies have to kill projects due to lack of money. There’s no worries about Apple, because it makes the kind of money that hardly any technology company in the world does. For now, there is no word on when we will see the first iPhone with an internal 5G modem. Whether it would be a performance booster is also not something that cannot be said right now.
