According to reports, an executive from Samsung Electronics stated that he is negotiating with smart phone manufacturers such as ZTE to discuss the supply of mobile processor chips by Samsung, which will prompt Samsung to compete more positively with communication chip maker Qualcomm.
The storage chip business is one of Samsung's basic businesses. It also allows Samsung to make a lot of profits. Inyup Kang, head of Samsung's System LSI (system LSI) division, said that Samsung is in talks with all OEMs and expects to announce a new customer for Samsung's Exynos mobile chipset in the first half of next year.
While Samsung is looking for a new customer for the Exynos chipset, the U.S. government has banned US companies from selling components to ZTE and bans it for up to seven years. Analysts said that this move will force ZTE to accelerate the decentralization of supply sources. Inyup Kang pointed out that Samsung will continue to negotiate with ZTE regardless of the progress of trade negotiations between China and the United States. Samsung's move will cause Qualcomm to face greater pressure. Qualcomm said last month that due to the impact of the ZTE event, the profit per share will decrease by 3 cents in the next quarter. Qualcomm also faces competition from Huawei. Huawei's flagship model uses its own chip HiSilicon.
Inyup Kang also said that with the slowdown in the growth of the smart phone market, Samsung’s logic chip division plans to look for growth momentum in new areas such as 5G, imaging sensors and automotive chips.
Since then, Samsung has stated that the agreement with ZTE is uncertain and its policy is to treat all suppliers equally.
