by Dan Moren

Apple renews Qualcomm patent deal

Qualcomm:

Qualcomm Incorporated today announced the renewal of its global patent license agreement with Apple, effective April 1, 2027.

“We are pleased to extend the Apple license agreement,” said John Han, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Qualcomm Technology Licensing (QTL).

That’s it. That’s the whole statement. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple has made no announcement.

Apple first struck a deal back in 2019, which not only ended ongoing litigation between the two, but also launched the patent licensing deal and a “multiyear chipset supply agreement.” Apple’s last re-up of its Qualcomm deal in 2023 extended that deal through 2026.

Despite developing its own cellular chips, Apple is still using some Qualcomm modems in its products. Though this year only the new iPhone 18 Pro Max uses Qualcomm modems, and then only in the U.S. And unlike the 17 Pro and iPhone Air, last year’s iPhone 17 used a Qualcomm modem. Some of this could be due to supply—Apple needs a lot of modems and perhaps can’t yet make enough for every single phone, iPad, and Apple Watch it produces.¹

Some of it could also be due to the specifics of the licensing agreement and dropping of the ongoing court case. But it is interesting that the Qualcomm announcement specified only the patent license—not a renewal of the original’s chipset supply agreement. Apple would surely want to use its C-series chips as much as possible—they seem to offer better performance and power efficiency, and with the C2 even add support for mmWave, one of the few features the previous version were lacking.

I certainly suspect we’ll continue to see fewer and fewer Qualcomm modems in Apple’s devices—they didn’t buy an entire modem division for nothing—but untangling a longstanding relationship like this can take a long time, given manufacturing timelines.