Samsung Galaxy S23 phones: no Samsung chip inside, it's all Qualcomm

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Samsung currently offers its Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone with different SoCs inside depending on the market, with some markets getting the Exynos 2200-powered Galaxy S22 Ultra, and other markets with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 SoC.

But for their next-gen Galaxy S23 family of smartphones, rumor has it Samsung will drop the use of its in-house Exynos SoC and move into the warm, loving arms of Qualcomm and its next-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. The news is coming from analyst and insider Ming-Chi Kuo, who outlined it pretty easily:

1. Qualcomm will likely be the sole processor supplier for Samsung Galaxy S23 (vs. 70% shipment proportion for S22) thanks to the next flagship 5G chip SM8550 made by TSMC 4nm.
2. S23 may not adopt Exynos 2300 made by Samsung 4nm because it can't compete with SM8550 in all aspects.
3. SM8550 is optimized for TSMC's design rule, so it has obvious advantages over SM8450/SM8475 in computing power and power efficiency.
4. Qualcomm/SM8550 will gain more market share in the high-end Android market in 2023. The economic recession affects the high-end market less, so the market share gain will significantly benefit Qualcomm and TSMC.

Samsung has been losing the SoC race for a while now, and while the new AMD RDNA 2-powered GPU inside of the Exynos 2200 SoC was meant to be something great, it was a steaming pile of shit. Apple is doing kick-ass things with its A series of mobile processors, with the next-gen A16 SoC dropping inside of the iPhone 14 later this year made on the newer TSMC N5P process node.

• Read more: Samsung Exynos 2200 'Xclipse' GPU specs: only has 555MHz GPU clock
• Read more: Samsung Exynos 2200 SoC with AMD RDNA 2 GPU is in major trouble

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen1 isn't the fastest SoC, as there is the beefed-up Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 (the differentiator there is the + if you didn't see it) which is found inside of the new ASUS ROG Phone 6 Pro gaming smartphone.

It's a suped-up version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, but the new Samsung Galaxy S23 family of phones will reportedly get the next-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC from Qualcomm.

• Read more: ASUS ROG Phone 6 gaming smartphone: first with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
• Read more: Snapdragon 8 Gen1 is made on Samsung 4nm process, not TSMC
• Read more: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 SoC: 5G at 10Gbps, 30% faster Adreno GPU
• Read more: Qualcomm Snapdragon brand change: Qualcomm name dropped, more coming

This was previously rumored back in November 2021, where I was reporting that Samsung's then-next-gen, and now current-gen Galaxy S22 family of smartphones could shift exclusively to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 898 processor at the time. So the shift from Samsung's in-house Exynos to all-Qualcomm isn't new, and moving forward it only makes more sense.