Under the pressure of a serious shortage of memory (DRAM) and rising supply chain costs, chip giant Qualcomm (Qualcomm) was unable to withstand cost pressure after all, and has officially issued a price adjustment notice to customers. According to the latest news, Qualcomm clearly stated in a letter sent to its customers that the prices of related products shipped starting from September 1st will be significantly increased, with an increase of double digits.
This means that the new generation of flagship chips - Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6) and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro - to be released at the "Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit" in late September will inevitably face price increases.
Qualcomm said that the company had previously tried its best to absorb the increasing supplier costs and actively searched for alternative parts and suppliers around the world, but these attempts failed to effectively resolve the huge cost crisis. The analysis pointed out that in addition to the continued spread of the memory crisis, the overall slowdown in global smartphone market demand has also had a direct impact on Qualcomm's chip business.
In terms of specific hardware costs, the manufacturing cost of TSMC's 2-nanometer process wafers remains high. The estimated cost of a single wafer has reached about US$30,000. This is one of the key factors driving up the price of Qualcomm's flagship chips. It is rumored that the cost of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro chip itself may exceed US$300. If a smartphone manufacturer plans to configure its flagship model with the latest LPDDR6 memory and UFS 5.0 flash memory, the cost of the core component combination alone may be as high as $600. In comparison, the standard version of Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 is expected to see relatively modest growth, and is expected to become the mainstream choice of more manufacturers with higher shipments and higher cost performance.
Facing the downturn in the mobile phone market and difficulties in the storage field, Qualcomm is accelerating its business transformation and investing more capital and resources in areas with high growth potential such as infrastructure and automotive chips. At the same time, in order to provide customers with more flexible choices, Qualcomm also plans to launch a variety of new chip products covering 2nm and 3nm processes. The industry generally believes that since the memory chip crisis will be difficult to alleviate in the short term, Qualcomm may further shift its business focus from traditional mobile phone chips to more profitable directions such as AI data centers in the future.