Qualcomm is struggling to meet demand growth for its Snapdragon chipset with multiple supply challenges affecting its production strategy. The ripple effects can give the priority level more priority at the expense of more affordable devices and longer waits for orders.
Sources at suppliers to Samsung – the most popular Android phone brand and a production partner for the Snapdragon chips – tell Reuters that the Korean OEM has a shortage across the Snapdragon line, up to the flagship Snapdragon 888. or it led to a slowdown in smartphone production. Meanwhile, a manager at a smartphone ODM with several major brand contracts says his company will have to cut shipping forecasts this year due to a general shortage of Qualcomm components.
Several factors are thought to be contributing to the pressure, some of which include: the devastating winter storms in Texas that cut power to a Samsung plant that makes radio frequency receivers for Qualcomm; a slowdown in the production of power chips in China and Taiwan, and; a scarcity-driven panic purchase in the broader chip market has pushed prices up rapidly, without the guarantee that stocks would arrive just in time. Qualcomm apparently directs most of its precious components to build more Snapdragon 888 products than lower-end chips.
What did not help is the burdens of Huawei – the Chinese phone maker is under a US import ban that effectively prevents the company from acquiring goods, services and intellectual property such as the Android operating system, Qualcomm parts and Arm chip blueprints to use. As such, those who were previously fans of the firm’s affordable but powerful cell phones had to make major changes to their products or, most likely, change their brand name.
If you want to buy a phone this year, you can use it sooner rather than later as a sign to check.
