Relying on LTE, Qualcomm has become the invisible "God" in the field of smartphones

In the mobile phone industry, Qualcomm is as omnipresent and omnipotent as God, yet it is unpredictable to all who look up to it. This company, with the vision of "high-quality communications", has now infiltrated all major smartphone manufacturers in the United States (and even in the world). Even Apple , which uses its own processors, has to use Qualcomm's LTE modems; the same is true for Samsung , which uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips in its mobile phones released in the US market.

However, Qualcomm's influence goes far beyond this. Its impact is much wider and its tentacles are much deeper.

A week ago, Verizon launched the Motorola Droid Turbo as its main holiday product. The Turbo power adapter used by this phone claims to last for 8 hours after charging for 15 minutes. When it comes to battery life, Moto's Nexus 6, HTC's Rapid power adapter, and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 all have similar powerful features. The choices and market effects of these brands have undoubtedly given good endorsement to Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 technology from a certain perspective.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor 2.7GHz 805 has become an increasingly popular choice for mobile phone manufacturers in recent years. In addition to Apple phones, other flagship phones released in the past two years, such as LG's G2 and G3, Sony's Xperia Z1, Z2, Z3, Nexus 5 and Nexus 6, 2013 and 2014 HTC One, and various models of Samsung Galaxy, all use this processor.

Outside of the Android camp, Windows Phone only uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor series, and Microsoft even distributes Qualcomm Reference Design to major mobile phone manufacturers. Qualcomm Snapdragon is also the default option for BlackBerry, and the latest BlackBerry Passport phone is equipped with a 2.2GHz Snapdragon 801 processor.

The Internet industry generally believes that the main driving force behind innovation in the mobile phone industry comes from Google and Apple; but in fact, Qualcomm is the killer that determines the speed of innovation.

Without Snapdragon to power the sensors, the HTC One's built-in smart sensor hub Sensor Hub cannot realize the gesture-activated Motion Launch function, let alone extend this function to the Dot View colorful display case. As for the Sony Xperia Z3 and its mini brother Z3 Compact, which have become the industry benchmark for mobile phone battery life, they are all running Snapdragon 801 processors.

Calum MacDougall, Sony's operations director responsible for Xperia mobile phone marketing, admitted that the credit for improving power and battery life largely depends on Qualcomm's chip technology. In an interview with the technology information website The Verge this summer, Steve Horowitz, a former Android system engineer and Motorola's vice president of software engineering, said that working with a "great partner" like Qualcomm is the secret to Motorola's ability to quickly upgrade software.

Looking at the smartphone industry, there is no manufacturer that does not rely on Qualcomm and gives great recognition to this chip manufacturer. HTC calls this chip supplier "an extremely important partner", and LG and Motorola also mentioned their "great partnership" with Qualcomm, saying that "both sides respect each other very much." LG also said, "There were other competitors in this field at one time, but Qualcomm became the trend-setter in the industry with its innovation." Qualcomm's killer weapon that currently dominates the industry is the LTE modem. The Snapdragon chip integrates the traditional modem with the application processor, greatly improving performance and making it the only choice for most mobile phone manufacturers. For mobile phone manufacturers, the problem is not which chip manufacturer's product to use, but which Snapdragon series chip to use.

Another chipmaker, Nvidia, is still fighting back against Qualcomm with its Tegra line of chips. The new Tegra K1 chip in the Nexus 9 phone and Shield tablet is undoubtedly excellent, but Nvidia has essentially lost the battle. The 2012 HTC One X, which had a Tegra 3 chip inside, was Nvidia's last attempt to overthrow Qualcomm's dominance in the smartphone processor market, but the phone was still shipped in the United States with a Qualcomm chip.

Despite Qualcomm's accolades, these smartphone makers are clearly uneasy about Qualcomm's seller's market advantage. Huawei has developed its own quad-core processor, Samsung is also pushing the Exynos series, and LG has just announced an octa-core NUCLUN processor, and it modestly stated, "Our NUCLUN processor provides another option for everyone, and it is by no means intended to replace Qualcomm." What about Intel? It is still trying tirelessly, and MediaTek has also achieved some success in the field of entry-level chips (relative to Qualcomm's advanced chips). But most of the smartphone market is still dominated by Snapdragon.

What's even more frightening to rivals is that Qualcomm is moving into smartwatches and other wearable devices. The LG G Watch R uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, which is much better than the Texas Instruments processor used in the Moto 360. Samsung's Gear S also uses a Snapdragon chip for data processing and network connectivity.

By the end of this year, shipments of 3G and 4G devices using Qualcomm chips are expected to exceed 1 billion. The company's annual revenue has reached tens of billions of dollars, and its net profit in recent quarters has exceeded 2.24 billion US dollars, demonstrating strong profit growth.

Looking back at the process of seizing the mobile wave, Qualcomm made many correct decisions and rarely made mistakes. When predicting whether WiMAX or LTE would lead the trend of the next generation of mobile Internet technology, Qualcomm wisely chose to stand on the side of LTE and integrated new technology features into its chips, which benefited both partners and users. Looking back at Qualcomm's road to becoming a legend, we find that it was just a simple journey of taking one step at a time.

The smartphone industry is always full of competition, but the product innovations of various manufacturers, such as Droid Turbo, HTC Sensor Hub and Lumia Refocus, are all based on Qualcomm chips. Occupying the upper reaches of the industry chain is often the core competitiveness of a company that is most difficult to be disrupted.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.