Self Support
Samsung Electronics will re-load the Exynos, an application processor (AP) designed by Samsung Electronics, into its Galaxy smartphone series. This plan aims to dial up Samsung Electronics’ share in the smartphone AP market and reduce the production cost of Galaxy products.
According to industry sources on April 3, Samsung Electronics plans to use the Exynos 2200, an AP of its own development, in the Galaxy S23 Fan Edition (FE) to be released in the second half of this year.
Mobile APs are a core component that act as the brains of smartphones and tablet PCs. Samsung Electronics had loaded the Galaxy S series with the Snapdragon, an AP produced by Qualcomm. However, when the Exynos 2200 in the Galaxy S22, Samsung Electronics’ flagship smartphone model last year, had yield and heat problems, the Korean smartphone giant loaded the Galaxy S23 released this year with Qualcomm APs only.
In addition, Samsung Electronics’ share in the global AP market plummeted as the use of APs from competitors such as Taiwan’s MediaTek increased even in entry-level models. Samsung Electronics raised its AP market share to 14 percent in 2019, but it descended to fifth place with a 7 percent share in the third quarter of last year. While Samsung Electronics faltered, Taiwan MediaTek rose to the top with a 35 percent share. Qualcomm took second place with a 31 percent share, followed by Apple in third place and China’s UniSOC in fourth place.
The Exynos’ slump in the AP market is not simply a problem of Samsung Electronics’ System LSI Division. This issue has led to a cost burden for Samsung Electronics’ MX Business Division, which is in charge of the smartphone business. According to a recent Samsung Electronics business report, the company’s mobile AP purchases grew by about 49.9 percent year-on-year to 9.3138 trillion won (US$7.1070 billion) in 2022. The mobile AP purchases accounted for 12.8 percent, the largest, of the division’s total purchase amount, beating out the amounts of camera module purchases and display panel purchases. Industry insiders analyze that Samsung Electronics’ increased burden of purchasing mobile APs is due to a rapid increase in the company’s use of Qualcomm’s AP Snapdragon.
However, Samsung Electronics recently started to make an improvement to the situation by raising the yields of the Exynos 2200 through a design change. Again, it started to make an ambitious move to expand its presence in the AP market. First of all, the Galaxy S23 FE equipped with the Exynos 2200 is expected to come out in the fourth quarter of this year. Industry observers expect the Galaxy S23 FE to be priced at around 800,000 won. The Galaxy S23 FE is a budget model while the recently launched Galaxy S23 is the luxury flagship model. Analysts say that the Galaxy S23 FE boasts of a superior performance compared to its price lower than that of the Galaxy S23. Market experts expect that if the Galaxy S23 FE is well received by consumers, it will be able to sell more than 10 million units.
In addition to this, Samsung Electronics is also spurring the development of the Exynos 2400 to load it into the Galaxy S24 to be released in 2024. Industry insiders expect mass production of the Exynos 2400 to begin this November at the earliest.
Samsung Electronics is expanding its Exynos lineup not only in flagship models but also in the budget smartphone market where it promotes sales of the Galaxy A series. The importance of the Galaxy A series has increased to the extent that sales of the Galaxy A series, not the Galaxy S series, actually determine Samsung Electronics’ smartphone performances for a year. The recently unveiled Exynos 1380 went into the Galaxy A54, the top model of the new Galaxy A series. Although the Exynos 1380 is not a high-priced model, it is evaluated as having the performance of a premium AP. The lower model Exynos 1330 is also expected to be installed in the A14 series. The A14 series is expected to gain popularity in emerging markets such as India.
Samsung Electronics is expanding the Exynos brand to the communication chip market beyond the AP market. Samsung Electronics recently unveiled the ultra-wide-band (UWB) based short-range wireless communication semiconductor Exynos Connect U100 as the first product of the Exynos Connect brand. UWB is a short-distance wireless communication technology that quickly transmits large amounts of information with low power over a wide frequency band. It is used in various fields such as smart homes and smart factories because it can accurately measure distances between devices and the locations of devices in the range of several centimeters. Market research firm Techno System Research (TSR) predicted that the number of devices equipped with UWB technology would soar from 300 million in 2022 to 1.8 billion by 2030. By 2030, UWB technology is expected to be used in 58 percent of all smartphones and 33 percent of all vehicles. Exynos Connect U100 implements optimized power modes for various operations. It can be useful for Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as mobile devices or location tags that need to run for a long time with low-capacity batteries.