New Exynos 2600 leak might make some Galaxy S26 buyers happy

A few days ago, Samsung launched the Exynos 2600, the brand’s new flagship chipset for mobile devices. Among the three devices in the company's next lineup of flagship phones — Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26+, and Galaxy S26 Ultra — the tech giant is expected to use the in-house developed SoC in the first two devices, for select regions. Whereas the third phone is said to feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 globally. 

Well, according to CTT Research, Samsung may offer the Galaxy S26 and the Galaxy S26+ with the Exynos 2600 chipset in only one region, which is the brand's home country, South Korea (via IT Home). The report suggests that the brand may have taken this step due to three reasons.

In the past, flagship Exynos chipsets haven’t performed as well as flagship Snapdragon SoCs in terms of speed, thermal efficiency, and power consumption. As such, customers and network carriers prefer to see these phones with Qualcomm processors. However, the Exynos 2600 is expected to be free from issues that plagued its predecessors. 

Even if the Exynos 2600 performs well, and Samsung decides to use it more widely with the Galaxy S26 series, there’s another problem, which is the yield of the processor. The brand is getting the Exynos 2600 made on Samsung Foundry’s second-generation 2nm fabrication process (SF2P), and its yield is said to have reached 50%.

At this yield rate, Samsung Foundry may not be able to make as many units of the Exynos 2600 as required to offer the Galaxy S26 and the Galaxy S26+ with this chipset in more regions.

Reportedly, Samsung has a contract in place with Qualcomm that mandates that 75% of Galaxy S series smartphones must use the Snapdragon chipsets. So, even if Samsung manages to increase the yield or ramp up the production of the Exynos 2600, using the chipset more widely for the Galaxy S26 and the Galaxy S26+ will violate its agreement with Qualcomm.

With all these reasons in mind, Samsung seems to have decided to use the Exynos 2600 only for the South Korea-specific variants of the Galaxy S26 and the Galaxy S26+.