How Qualcomm built a mobile empire (and will it last?)

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Credit: Rita El Khoury / Android Authority


If you could pop on some X-ray specs and peek inside your smartphone, there’s a good chance you’d see a Qualcomm Snapdragon logo adorning its CPU — at least if you’re sporting a flagship handset. With Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and many other major global brands backing Snapdragon as their premium platform of choice, Qualcomm sits in a pretty dominant position in the mobile chip market, even though its rivals might pick up volume on mid-range products with tighter margins.

Go back in time a bit, however, and you might have bought a Samsung Galaxy with Exynos in the US or could have been mulling the benefits of HUAWEI’s Kirin in Europe. Before that, your phone probably had a chip built by the formidable Texas Instruments or even Intel. So, just how did Qualcomm’s Snapdragon end up being virtually synonymous with Android smartphones?




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