According to Qualcomm, Apple has extended its modem chipset licensing agreement with Qualcomm until March 2027, which means Qualcomm modems will appear in several iPhones scheduled for release in the next two years.
Qualcomm released its financial report for the first quarter of 2024 with revenues of $9.92 billion and net profit of $2.77 billion.
Apple has extended its 5G modem licensing agreement until March 2027, the company's CEO, Cristiano Amon, announced.
“We are pleased to announce that we have already extended several key licensing agreements related to Qualcomm's technology licensing business and that Apple has exercised its unilateral option to extend the global patent license agreement for an additional two years, thereby extending the existing agreement to extend until March 2027,” Amon said.
This comes after an extension agreement between the two companies covering Qualcomm modems that support 5G networks through Apple devices until 2026.
The iPhone manufacturer has been developing 5G modem chips for several years.
This technology allows the company to rely less on Qualcomm in manufacturing 5G chips, although there are several delays in its progress.
Apple has struggled to develop 5G modems internally after it acquired the modem division from Intel in a multibillion-dollar deal in 2019.
The deal secured Apple more than 17,000 patents and more than 2,200 Intel employees, although neither measure was enough to help Apple.
Apple's 5G modem development still faces hurdles and has been repeatedly postponed. Some reports indicate that Apple has canceled the modem project entirely.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said in November 2023 that development of Apple's modem chip had been delayed until late 2025 or 2026 and could be delayed further.
Apple originally hoped that its modem chips would be available in 2024, but that goal was never achieved.
The company was then hoping to introduce the modem chip in the iPhone SE, which is scheduled to be launched in the spring of 2025, but it was unable to achieve this goal either.
Gorman said at the time that Apple was still a long way from developing a chip that could deliver Qualcomm-like performance.
The company had problems with the Intel code it used after acquiring Intel's modem chip business.
Apple had to rewrite the code and add new features that would break existing features, and the company had to avoid violating Qualcomm's patents when developing the modem.
Qualcomm's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that the company believes Apple may develop and use a 5G modem at some point in the future.