QC LTE lead is being chipped away slowly. It is now below 80% market share. QC is not in danger of losing the lead any time soon, but the problem is in growth. A single digit percentage growth means QC valuation stops growing, like what happened to Intel even with $50Billion annual revenue. After a lesson in the mobile license, the industry is very vigilant to not let QC dominate in the standards essential patents and no one will be able to craft licensing based on the gross product. So, going forward it is building chips and making a dime on the dollar like all other IC companies. Limited new markets and eroding market share mean that QC will see an inflection point in growth and start to retreat in value. Hey, investors have no mercy.
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Apple must be trying to break up the QC monopoly, and so, it is likely that more than 1 socket is lost to Intel or other supplies. It is becoming more certain that QC will have more layoffs in 2015.
Qualcomm has 5 sockets in the iPhone 6. I wonder if those are all lost to Intel in the 2016 iPhone.
The move away from QC AP or modem is inevitable, because the industry realizes what would happen if QC is allowed to monopolize the chip supply, like it nearly has. Apple sees that QC is crushing the suppliers and that is a threat to Apple’s business. Apple needs to reverse that. It is just good business to have self preservation.
Will the Intel modem will be paired with long speculated Apple RF front end? Talk about lowwwwww cost and MOAR profit.
Xiaomi will go with the least expensive chip they can.
If u use earnings call math, going from 61 design wins to 60 is no biggie!
When Samsung news leaked, LG and HTC came to rescue. Unfortunately, LG and HTC combined have less than 10% of Samsung market share. Xiaomi is a copy-cat company and it has donereally well in China. As soon as it steps out of China, Apple will sue its pants off. So, it does not matter how many other companies are using QC, it only matters that Apple and Samsung use QC. It is a double blow to lose Apple and Samsung.
Help us obi xiaomi nobi, you're our only hope!
If you think things are bad now with the emerging market iPhones going with Intel, just wait for this upcoming product refresh cycle for Samsung. QC is in for a rude awakening, especially as Samsung is going to be using more and more discrete components from their own subdivision. It's not just the app processor anymore.