Did Qualcomm just trash Galaxy S26's Exynos hopes? Not really

Samsung has hoped to bring the Exynos chipsets back in play for its Galaxy S series. Several difficulties at its foundry prevented that from happening for the Galaxy S25 this year, essentially forcing Samsung to go Snapdragon-only for the device.

All of this reporting thus far suggests that Samsung is now in a much better position to have the Exynos 2600 take the lead on the Galaxy S26 series. However, recent comments from Qualcomm have led some to believe that the Snapdragon may once again be the lead chipset on next year's flagship lineup, but that's not really the case.

The confusion stems from comments made by Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon during the company's Q4 2025 earnings call. Commenting on Qualcomm's position in the Android premium tier, Amon said that Qualcomm previously had a 50% share with Samsung which in recent years has gone up to 75%.

He pointed out that sometimes Qualcomm ends up with more than 75%, as it was 100% on the Galaxy S25. “Our assumption for any new Galaxy is always going to be 75%. That is our assumption for Galaxy S26,” he added.

The key word here is assumption, meaning that if nothing changes on Samsung's end, Qualcomm would still end up with the larger share on Galaxy S devices simply because there's no other high-end chipset solution that would suit Samsung's requirements for its flagship series.

Qualcomm can't really comment on what Samsung intends to do with Exynos as that's not a matter for it to comment on. It can only provide guidance based on what the trend has been with Samsung up until now and what it could be if it all remains the same.

The 75% on Samsung's flagship series has been presented as the baseline before by Qualcomm. Amon mentioned this “baseline assumption” during the Q3 2025 earnings call as well. Nothing new has been said by him that would suggest Samsung may go all Snapdragon again on the Galaxy S26 series.