Qualcomm CEO Won’t Say ‘Directly’ If Company Would Withhold Product From Apple

If asked if Qualcomm would consider withholding product from Apple as it wages its patent fight against the iPhone maker over baseband processor chips (see 1707200029), “I'd probably not answer that directly,” CEO Steve Mollenkopf told a Citi investor conference Friday. At Qualcomm, “we've really tried to separate the two issues” between suing Apple and supplying product to the company, said Mollenkopf. “They're very separate teams that deal with this,” he said. “We really want to keep these things separate, and we have a very important product business. We think being a good supplier is important. It's important business to us and the shareholders, and we try to have the least amount of disruption that we can have on that. Remember, we want to be a partner of people for decades, so it can take a long view.” History shows “these things get settled out of court,” said Mollenkopf of the fight with Apple. “Now the timing of that is never known, and there's always a lot of elements back and forth.” Mollenkopf thinks “people need to realize there's always discussions” taking place, he said. Apple didn’t comment Monday.