Since the Galaxy S3 series, Samsung has adopted the dual-core strategy of Qualcomm + Orion, that is, according to the market demand in different regions, models equipped with different chips will be sold locally.
Although there will be performance differences between different chips, Samsung has been maintaining a balance between the two chips, such as the Qualcomm MSM8960 used in the Galaxy S3, which is more powerful in architecture, and the Exynos 4412, which is more powerful in multi-core performance.
Source: Samsung).
However, in recent years, as Qualcomm's development momentum in the mobile field has become more ferocious, Samsung Electronics has also had to give priority to the S series models sold in more countries and regions equipped with contemporary flagship Qualcomm chips. Until the Galaxy S23 series released last year, Samsung had completely abandoned the dual-core strategy and only launched a version with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile platform.
Of course, in order to support the growth of Exynos chips, and also to enhance the influence of Samsung's S series in the market, Samsung decided to re-enable Exynos chips on the Galaxy S25 series, continuing the dual-core strategy. However, according to the latest intelligence shared by well-known technology blogger @tech Reve, Samsung may create a new chip brand to unify Qualcomm Snapdragon and Samsung Exynos chips.
With the establishment of a new brand and the return of Samsung's flagship mobile chips to the battlefield, can it still find a place in this surging smartphone market?
Different from the previous dual-core strategy, the new chip brand created by Samsung will include Samsung's self-developed Exynos chips and Qualcomm's flagship chips, and the latter will even be an exclusive version designed by Qualcomm for Samsung.
In fact, the cooperation between Samsung and Qualcomm is getting deeper and deeper, and there are traces to follow. As early as last year, Samsung equipped the flagship Galaxy S23 series with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy mobile platform.
Source: Samsung).
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy has only some gaps in the clock speed compared to the regular version, with the former having a super-large core clock of 336GHz, compared to 3 for the regular version19ghz。After the exclusivity period, the chip was also renamed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Leading Edition and began to be equipped on other models, such as the RedMagic 8S Pro.
On this year's Galaxy S24 series, Qualcomm continues to provide Samsung with an exclusive version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, still with the For Galaxy suffix, and the overall compared with the regular version, only with some adjustments in the main frequency. Until here, this cooperation model is no different from the previous exclusive model, just like the early mobile phone brand often has a period of protection for the first chip, after which it loses its unique competitiveness.
For Samsung, such a cooperation is not deep enough.
It can be simply understood that Samsung wants to create a chip brand called Galaxy, but in fact, it is provided by Samsung and Qualcomm at the same time, and in order to ensure the use experience, its actual performance will be almost the same. What's more, Qualcomm may also design the chip needed specifically for Samsung, unlike the earlier 8 for Galaxy.
Source: Samsung).
For Samsung, such a cooperation can weaken Qualcomm's brand presence in Samsung's S series flagship products, thereby popularizing the concept of Samsung mobile chips and enhancing the market position of Samsung's flagship mobile phones. This model is a bit similar to Apple's cooperation scheme on screen components, just like the public thinks that the iPhone's display panel performs well, but few users understand that this is actually a product from Samsung, LG and BOE.
What's more, the customized flagship chip provided by Qualcomm will help Samsung implement more planned features, especially the current mobile phone market's focus on AI large models, and strong enough NPUs to make these functions work to the fullest.
Source: 9to5google).
At present, there are still a lot of controversial voices about this plan, such as whether Samsung's Exynos chip can perform in line with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8? What are the advantages of Samsung's new chip brand compared to the previous ones? These questions may not be answered until the Galaxy S25 series launch event.
At the Samsung Galaxy S24 series press conference, the long-lost Exynos flagship chip was unveiled again, as the flagship chip that returned after a year, the Exynos 2400 also delivered a gratifying answer.
In terms of specifications, the Exynos 2400 follows the 10-core architecture of the previous generation, with a frequency of 3 by 12GHz Cortex-X4 cores, 2 x 29GHz Cortex-A720 core, 3 pcs 2It consists of 6GHz Cortex-A720 cores and 4 2GHz Cortex-A520 energy-efficient cores. Among them, Samsung specifically showed off its AI performance section, which skyrocketed by 14 compared to its predecessor7 times.
However, according to foreign media tests, there are still some gaps between Exynos 2400 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which are mainly reflected in some high-energy consumption scenarios, which may be related to software debugging. It's not hard to see that assuming Samsung intends to cover the dual-core strategy with a brand new chip brand, it is no small challenge to ensure that the differences between the two chips are small enough.
Source: Samsung).
And the real competition has to look to the future, such as Samsung and Qualcomm after the simultaneous use of 3nm process technology. According to sources, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 and Samsung Exynos 2500 two flagship chips will use 3nm process technology, but the former is provided by TSMC, while the latter is in charge of Samsung. TSMC's 3nm process technology debuted at Apple's autumn conference last year, but the improvement of the A17 Pro and Apple M3 chips is not as big as expected.
In other words, 3nm is a big test for both TSMC and Samsung, not to mention a series of chip design manufacturers such as Apple and Qualcomm. It is foreseeable that if Samsung tries to pull the Exynos 2500 to a level similar to that of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in the remaining half a year, it will not be a big problem.
According to Qualcomm's plan, it is expected to switch to self-developed architecture next year, which is also something that Samsung needs to consider. If the performance of Qualcomm's Snapdragon flagship chip is upgraded to a new level with the blessing of the new architecture, it will be difficult for Samsung to balance the performance difference between the two chips.
As a flagship mobile phone, the Galaxy S series has gained a large number of fans in the global market since its birth, but with the serious involution of the mobile phone market, Samsung seems to be a little passive after each brand has found its exclusive positioning and characteristics. However, this situation was broken by the Galaxy S24 series, as it was the world's first mobile phone to be defined as an AI phone.
Source: Samsung).
With the blessing of AI features, the Galaxy S24 series has set a new sales record for Samsung. According to the report, the Galaxy S24 series may reach 10 million units in the first month, including 3.2 million units sold in North America and more than one million units in South Korea. It can be said that after establishing the AI Phone concept, Samsung once again created market demand and helped further deepen the brand concept.
This is a good start for Samsung, and the next task is to maintain this strategy and continue to create a unified concept that aligns with the brand's tone and helps users better understand the new Samsung. For example, building a new chip brand.
The concept of AI mobile phones has been widely regarded by the industry as the next outlet in the mobile phone market, for example, OPPO, on the occasion of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon in 2024, officially designated its products as AI phones; Even more radical is Meizu, where the new Meizu 21 Pro directly abandons the traditional concept of a mobile phone, which is defined as an AI terminal.
Source: Samsung).
In the future, consumers may not pursue the extreme performance of the processor excessively, after all, most users will hardly feel the pressure of large games or the performance of extreme battery life in just a few minutes of hands-on experience. However, the AI function is very intuitive and obvious, whether it can be eliminated with AIGC to generate **, whether it can use natural language to continue the conversation, this is immediately felt.
After the creation of a new chip brand, Samsung may pay more attention to digging deeper in the direction of AI phone, weakening the mention of chip performance parameters, focusing on the improvement of AI computing power, so that the concept of AI chip can easily enter the minds of consumers and strengthen the concept of the brand.
Betting on AI to help Samsung find its home in the flagship market, sales have set new records, the topic is full, and even the concept of Galaxy AI has begun to take root in the hearts of the people, and the next step is to improve the concept of unity in the field of mobile semiconductors. Whether the Galaxy S series can quickly return to the height of head-to-head competition with the iPhone in the next few years may be a matter of success or failure. I've got my digital goodies