Qualcomm, maker of most CDMA chips in cell phones, may gain $12 million annually from Apple’s recent announcement of an iPhone for the Verizon Wireless network. Earlier this week, the carrier said it will begin selling the handset Feb. 10.
The San Diego, Calif.-based chipmaker likely supplanted Intel’s Infineon chip used by iPhones available through AT&T, according to UBM TechInsights, a firm that “tears-down” handsets for analysis. For Qualcomm, its inclusion in the iconic handset is a “pretty big and important foot in the door,” a company executive told the Wall Street Journal.
Although the Qualcomm chip costs Apple the same as those from Infineon, the handset maker may still find cost-savings. Components for a 32GB Verizon iPhone will cost around $175, down from about $200 for previous models, according to UBM. Also, the cost of flash memory, used in the iPhone and other Apple products, has fallen.
In late 2010, talk emerged that any “world” iPhone would use a Qualcomm chip. Soon after the Verizon iPhone was announced, reports that the new CDMA iPhone was headed to China also surfaced. South Korea is another country that could reportedly take advantage of the CDMA-based handset.
The use of Qualcomm in the Verizon iPhone may point to Sprint being the next U.S. carrier to possibly receive a go-ahead to sell the handset. Like Verizon, Sprint uses the CDMA wireless transmission technology.