Qualcomm and Apple are both important players in the smartphone market, their latest flagship chips Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and A16 bionic chips are manufactured using TSMC’s N4 (4nm) process, so how much do they cost?
According to Twitter user Derrick, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is priced at $160 each (currently about RMB 1134), which is quite a bit more than Qualcomm’s customers are willing to pay, as it means makers of flagship smartphones will have to raise the price of their devices to make a reasonable profit. This comes after Nikkei News reported that Apple’s A16 bionic chip costs just $110 each, and while it’s more than twice as expensive as the A15 bionic chip, it’s still $50 cheaper than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 offer.
It should be noted, however, that Apple developed the A16 bionic chip for its own products, not to sell to other device makers. Assuming Apple has some sort of deal with Android to provide them with the A16 bionic chip, the price could be higher than what the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 sells for.
Judging by the price of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, Qualcomm could potentially charge a higher price for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, especially given that it’s expected to be made using TSMC’s somewhat more advanced N4P process and is rumored to offer higher performance without sacrificing power consumption. This year, Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series all use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip “customized for Galaxy”, meaning that Samsung has to pay a high price for the chip to Qualcomm, which is probably one of the reasons why Samsung has been repeatedly reported to be developing the Exynos 2400 chip.
