14 DAY TRIAL // The chip shortage that’s hitting so many industries, including the automotive world, is far from coming to an end, and what’s even worse is that it continues to hit more and more large companies out there.
The latest to struggle to align the production with the continuously growing demand for chips is now Qualcomm, which according to a report, can’t build enough Snapdragon chipsets for mobile devices.
And needless to say, everyone making phones powered by Snapdragon chips is impacted by the whole thing, including South Korean tech behemoth Samsung.
A report from Reuters reveals that mid-range and low-end Samsung phones coming with Qualcomm chips are affected, though, at this point, it’s believed the San Diego-based company is also having a hard time producing enough Snapdragon 888 chips.
This particular model is used by high-end devices, so there’s a chance Samsung’s flagship lineup could eventually suffer from this chip shortage too.
The Huawei transition
Oddly enough, the chip shortage hitting Qualcomm appears to be caused at some level by Huawei’s dropping sales. Because the Chinese tech firm is losing users following the U.S. sanctions forbidding it to offer Android and Google services on its smartphones, some customers are moving to other brands.
All these companies are ordering more chips in an attempt to satisfy the demand and thus benefit from Huawei’s struggle. And because most rely on Qualcomm chips, the chip orders have skyrocketed lately, therefore Qualcomm has a hard time building as many processors as required by its clients.
At this point, it’s not exactly clear when this lack of chips could come to an end, but until the pandemic comes to an end, there’s a good chance demand for chipsets would just continue to be very strong.
Qualcomm hasn’t commented on the report so far.