Apple’s $1 billion deal for Intel’s modem business has brought a flurry of speculation that this will expedite the company’s entry and competitiveness in 5G.
The iPhone business is already seeing increased competition from Samsung and Huawei, which grew 8% and 6%, respectively in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to Canalys, while iPhone sales fell by 13% during that period and the company’s margins decreased 1.4%. This begs a question of whether building modem technology in-house is a better investment than continuing to partner with Qualcomm to more quickly achieve parity with the competition, which has already delivered 5G devices.
Apple is starting from behind. It took Huawei and Samsung eight to 10 years to build a modem that is competitive with Qualcomm QCOM, -2.68% . This acquisition will shorten Apple’s timeline to some extent, but Apple lacks the infrastructure experience and products that both of those companies have.
Apple lacks deep knowledge of the 5G standards. Apple has not actively participated in the 5G standard or the standards that came before. While it has implemented these standards, there are many nuances in features and details to understand how the next advances will work. This will cause Apple to take longer to implement both the new standards and subsequent changes. This knowledge won’t inherently come through the acquisition and the talent coming in with it.
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