If you are a phone enthusiast, a phone nerd, or eat, drink, and breathe smartphones 24 hours a day, you are familiar with Ming-Chi Kuo. If you’re a loyal PhoneArena reader, you’ve certainly seen his name mentioned in articles and headlines. Kuo is an analyst for TF International, an investment management company located in Hong Kong. While Kuo has certainly made some amazing calls about Apple devices in advance, his latest forecast has to do with Samsung. More precisely, Samsung’s next flagship series, the Galaxy S25 which is due to launch in 2025.
Originally, it appeared that Samsung was going to keep the status quo next year and have the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ powered by the latest Exynos application processor (AP), the Exynos 2500, in most markets except for the U.S., China, and Canada. In those markets, the Galaxy S25 and Galaxy S25+ would be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC. The latter chip would be found in every Galaxy S 25 Ultra handset regardless of which market it was purchased in.
40% of Galaxy S24 series handsets are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 AP while 60% rely on the deca-core Exynos 2400 AP. Like we said, Samsung was planning on repeating this strategy for its 2025 flagship line but a manufacturing issue mentioned by Kuo seems to have put the kibosh on that plan. While both the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 and the Exynos 2500 chipsets will both be produced using a 3nm process node, the chips are being made by rival foundries. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset will be built by leader TSMC and Samsung’s Exynos chip will be built by Samsung Foundry.
Samsung might use the Snaopdragon 8 Gen 4 AP on all Galaxy S25 models says Ming-Chi Kuo
Kuo writes in his tweet that Samsung Foundry’s 3nm process node suffers from low yields which threatens to result in a shortage of Exynos 2500 SoCs. Considering how well the Galaxy S24 line is selling, Sammy needs to make sure that it will have enough chipsets for its 2025 flagship phones. Kuo writes that the yield issue is so serious that Samsung might not ship any Exynos 2500 chips at all.