Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 costs $240 — $280 per unit, which is 46% of Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s interpolated BOM of $613.
Qualcomm has snared Samsung for good and, for the foreseeable future at least, no amount of Exynos performance boost will be sufficient for the South Korean behemoth to break free of this stranglehold. Samsung is Qualcomm’s goose that lays golden eggs, and those eggs will come in the form of the Galaxy S26 Ultra this time around
Samsung currently has a patent-license agreement with Qualcomm, whereby the former has secured access to the latter’s patented technology through 2030. Samsung also signed a multi-year, multi-region agreement with Qualcomm back in 2024, locking in access to the latest Snapdragon flagship chips.
The problem with these agreements, however, lies in their extractive nature, which is now forcing Samsung to undertake painful and regressive cost-cutting measures, which include the biggest selfie camera hole ever used on a Galaxy S-series Ultra variant.
As we reported earlier today, Samsung is apparently gearing up to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip exclusively on the Galaxy S26 Ultra.
