Qualcomm Partnering With Smartphone Makers on Satcom-Enabled Connectivity

Smartphone makers Motorola, Honor, Nothing, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi are working with Qualcomm to develop smartphones with satellite communication capabilities, leveraging its Iridium-enabled Snapdragon Satellite platform, Qualcomm said Monday. It said Snapdragon Satellite also will expand to other device categories in computing, automotive and IoT. In a note to investors, William Blair's Louie DiPalma said those smartphone makers combined produce about 30% of global smartphone units. He said Android OEM Samsung "is notably absent from the list," but Samsung is very likely to become part of the Snapdragon Satellite group. Last week Samsung announced it was working on satellite connectivity for its Exynos chip.