Apple, Qualcomm extend cooperation deal until 2027

Apple has extended its modem chip licensing agreement with Qualcomm through March 2027, Qualcomm said, meaning Qualcomm modems will appear in several iPhones scheduled for release over the next two years.

Qualcomm published its earnings report for the first quarter of 2024, which revealed revenues of $9.92 billion and net income of $2.77 billion.

According to the “Arab Technology Portal,” Cristiano Amon, the company’s CEO, revealed that Apple has extended the 5G modem licensing agreement until March 2027.

“We are pleased to announce that we have previously extended several key licensing agreements in relation to Qualcomm’s technology licensing business, and Apple has exercised its unilateral option to extend the global patent licensing agreement for an additional two years, extending the current agreement through March 2027,” Amon said.

This development comes after the two companies previously reached an extension covering Qualcomm modems that support 5G networks through Apple devices until 2026.

The iPhone manufacturer has been developing the 5G modem chip over the past several years.

This technology allows it to reduce dependence on Qualcomm to obtain 5G chips, although its progress has witnessed several delays.

Apple has had a difficult time internally developing 5G modems after it acquired Intel’s modem division in 2019 in a $1 billion deal.

That deal granted Apple more than 17,000 patents and more than 2,200 Intel employees, although all these efforts were not enough to help Apple.

Apple’s development process for the 5G modem continues to face obstacles and has been postponed several times. Some reports indicated that Apple canceled the modem project entirely.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said in November 2023 that Apple’s development of the modem chip had been delayed until late 2025 or 2026, and would likely see further delays.

Apple was initially seeking to have a modem chip of its design that would be ready to work by 2024, although that did not happen.

The company then wanted to introduce the modem chip in the iPhone SE, which is supposed to be launched in the spring of 2025, although it will not be able to achieve this goal either.

Gorman said at the time that Apple was years away from creating a chip capable of providing performance similar to that of Qualcomm chips.

The company had problems with the Intel code it was using after acquiring Intel’s modem chip business.

Apple was forced to rewrite the code, and adding new features led to the breakdown of existing features, and the company must avoid violating Qualcomm’s patents during the development of the modem.

Qualcomm’s report to the Securities and Exchange Commission indicates that the company believes Apple may develop and use 5G modems at some point in the future.