To the benefit of customers worldwide, Samsung did the unthinkable and gave the Galaxy S23 series a brilliant Snapdragon chipset in every market, excluding Exynos from the equation. As a result, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is one of the best Android phones ever made, especially since Samsung worked with Qualcomm to tune the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset exclusively for its 2023 flagship phones. Nevertheless, the “for Galaxy” chipset is not the only great thing Qualcomm did for the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Counterpoint Research reveals that Qualcomm contributed much more to the Galaxy S23 Ultra. In fact, Qualcomm has a slightly higher design share in the Galaxy S23 Ultra than even Samsung. The US-based company won 34% of designs for the Galaxy S23 Ultra, as it provided not only the chipset but also the fingerprint sensor integrated circuit (IC), the key power management IC, the audio codec, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and Sub-6GHz transceivers, and the RF (radio-frequency) power amplifiers.
Qualcomm has more Galaxy S23 Ultra design wins than Samsung
In contrast, Samsung's component manufacturing branches contributed 33% (1% less than Qualcomm) to the final product we know as the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Samsung and its subsidiaries supplied Galaxy S23 Ultra components such as the NAND flash, the AMOLED display, and some of the camera sub-systems, including the 200MP camera and the 12MP selfie shooter. Meanwhile, Sony supplied the 12MP ultrawide sensor, 10MP telephoto unit, and periscope telephoto sensor. And while the battery is packaged by Samsung, ATL provides the cell.
Other companies that contributed less than 27% of the Galaxy S23 Ultra's components combined are Corning, Qorvo, TDK, Goertek, Murata, ST, Sony, NPX, and Knowles.
The research paper also suggests that Samsung's bill of materials (BoM) for the 8GB+256GB Galaxy S23 Ultra comes in at $469. In contrast, the Galaxy S20 Ultra's bill of material was estimated to be worth $528, while the Galaxy S21 Ultra BoM was 7% lower. The S20 Ultra was the first Samsung phone to boast a bonkers camera setup with so-called “Space Zoom” capabilities, which may have made it costlier to produce back in 2020. But costs have decreased as technologies matured and supply chains became more efficient.
It's important to remember that these BoM estimates don't include costs for software development, employees, marketing, or future firmware updates and prolonged support. They're just an estimate of the combined cost of the phone's components.
