Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy Z series foldables, Galaxy Ring and more this year with several more expected from the brand in 2025. During its latest earnings announcement, Samsung offered a glimpse into its product roadmap for the next year. The South Korean smartphone giant confirmed that the much-awaited Galaxy S25 series will launch in the first half of 2025. It will also reveal its long-awaited XR device soon. Additionally, Samsung appears to be exploring ways to bring affordable foldable smartphones to the market.

Samsung Galaxy S25 to Land in the First Half of 2025

In its latest earning announcement, Samsung teased plans for 2025. The company confirmed that its MX (Mobile experience) department plans to pursue sales growth and profitability improvement centered on flagships such as the Galaxy S25 series and foldables, while also expanding sales of ecosystem products such as the Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Book, and wearables. Samsung says the Galaxy S25 series will be launched ” in the first half of next year” with Galaxy AI features.

Samsung usually releases its non-foldable flagships in either January or February, so the Galaxy S25 models are expected to hit shelves the same time next year. The current Galaxy S24 lineup was unveiled in January 2024.

Moreover, Samsung said that its XR (eXtended Reality) device is “scheduled to be launched in the future”. With this, the MX division is eyeing to contribute to the expansion of the Samsung Health ecosystem through the Galaxy Ring launched this year and to strengthen the connectivity experience between our products. The XR device is expected to debut sometime next year.

Additionally, an X user Jukanlosreve (@Jukanlosreve), citing Samsung’s conference call, posted that the company is looking to bring a budget-friendly foldable smartphone. The post reads “We are considering ways to lower entry barriers so that more customers can actually experience foldable products, given the high satisfaction among existing foldable users,” hinting at the development of cheaper foldable offerings.

Samsung Galaxy S25 series will reportedly feature slightly older display technology to keep costs of producing the upcoming handsets in check. While the iPhone 16 Pro models sport displays that are built with the company’s latest technology, the purported successors to the company’s Galaxy S24 lineup might not offer the same display improvements as its rivals, according to a report. Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy S25 series of smartphones in early 2025, with Snapdragon 8 Elite chips.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Could Feature Older Display Technology to Cut Costs

An ETNews report citing industry insiders (in Korean) states that Samsung will equip the Galaxy S25 series with low-temperature polycrystalline oxide (LTPO) OLED panels built by Samsung Display using M13 organic materials. These are the same OLED materials were reportedly used by the company to produce the displays for the Samsung Galaxy S24 series that arrived earlier this year.

This means that the Samsung Galaxy S25 series will not feature displays that are built using M14 organic materials, used by Samsung Display to produce the panels on the iPhone 16 Pro models that were launched earlier this year. Display Chain Supply Consultants (DSCC) CEO Ross Young also echoed these claims, stating that the decision was made for “cost reasons”.

The report also sheds some light on the display sizes of the company’s upcoming flagship phones — the Galaxy S25 could feature a 6.16-inch screen, while the Galaxy S25+ and the Galaxy S25 Ultra may sport 6.66-inch and 6.86-inch displays, respectively.

At Qualcomm’s recent Snapdragon Summit 2024 event, Samsung Mobile President TM Roh said that Samsung’s upcoming smartphone models would be equipped with the chipmaker’s latest flagship processor. It is unclear whether the purported decision to use an older display technology to cut costs is related to the reported decision to use Snapdragon 8 Elite chipsets on all models, unlike the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ that arrived with an Exynos 2400 SoC in several markets.

Samsung Galaxy S25 series is expected to launch in early 2025 as a successor to the Galaxy S24 lineup. The existing lineup includes a base Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24+ and Galaxy S24 Ultra. The anticipated series is expected to arrive with similar variants. Leaked details about the purported Galaxy S25 series have been surfacing online for a while and the upcoming handsets are said to be slimmer than the company’s current flagship models. A tipster has now leaked some details regarding the chipset expected to power the lineup.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Series Specifications (Leaked)

The Samsung Galaxy S25 series handsets will be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, according to an X post by tipster Ice Universe (@UniverseIce). The tipster claims that the lineup will not include any Exynos 2500 and MediaTek Dimensity 9400 variants, suggesting all phones in all markets will feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip.

Currently, the Galaxy S24 series phones carry Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipsets, although in several markets (including India) the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ come with an in-house Exynos 2400 SoC. As per the new leak, the upcoming Galaxy S25 series will exclusively feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.

Recently Samsung Mobile President TM Roh announced at the Snapdragon Summit 2024 that future Samsung handsets will feature the newly launched Snapdragon 8 Elite but he did not specify the series or models that will get them. Since the S and Z series phones are the company’s flagship phones, the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold and Flip as well as the Galaxy S25 series models are expected to get this chipset.

Previous leaks suggest that the purported Galaxy S25 series phones will be slimmer than their Galaxy S24 counterparts. The vanilla version could measure 146.94×70.46×7.25mm, while the Plus variant may measure 158.44 x 75.79 x 7.35mm in size.

The top-of-the-line Ultra version could measure 162.82×77.65×8.25mm. In comparison, the base Galaxy S24 measures 147×70.6×7.6mm, while the Plus and Ultra options measure 158.5×75.9×7.7mm and 162.3x79x8.6mm, respectively. Another report suggests that the Galaxy S25 Ultra may come with Black, Blue, Green, and Titanium colour options. 

Arm Holdings is canceling a license that allowed longtime partner Qualcomm to use Arm intellectual property to design chips, escalating a legal dispute over vital smartphone technology.
Arm, based in the UK, has given Qualcomm a mandated 60-day notice of the cancellation of their so-called architectural license agreement, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. The contract allows Qualcomm to create its own chips based on standards owned by Arm.

The showdown threatens to roil the smartphone and personal computer markets, as well as disrupting the finances and operations of two of the most influential companies in the semiconductor industry.

Qualcomm sells hundreds of millions of processors annually — technology used in the majority of Android smartphones. If the cancellation takes effect, the company might have to stop selling products that account for much of its roughly $39 billion (roughly Rs. 3,27,890 crore) in revenue, or face claims for massive damages.

The move ratchets up a legal fight that began when Arm sued San Diego-based Qualcomm — one of its biggest customers — for breach of contract and trademark infringement in 2022. With the cancellation notice, Arm is giving the US company an eight-week period to remedy the dispute. 

Representatives for Arm declined to comment. A Qualcomm spokesperson said the British company was trying to “strong-arm a longtime partner.”

It “appears to be an attempt to disrupt the legal process, and its claim for termination is completely baseless,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We are confident that Qualcomm’s rights under its agreement with Arm will be affirmed.” 

The two are headed to a trial to resolve the breach-of-contract claim by Arm and a countersuit by Qualcomm. The disagreement centers on Qualcomm’s 2021 acquisition of another Arm licensee and a failure — according to Arm — to renegotiate contract terms. Qualcomm argues that its existing agreement covers the activities of the company that it purchased, the chip-design startup Nuvia.

Nuvia’s work on microprocessor design has become central to new personal computer chips that Qualcomm sells to companies such as HP and Microsoft. The processors are the key component to a new line of artificial intelligence-focused laptops dubbed AI PCs. Earlier this week, Qualcomm announced plans to bring Nuvia’s design — called Oryon — to its more widely used Snapdragon chips for smartphones. 

Arm says that move is a breach of Qualcomm’s license and is demanding that the company destroy Nuvia designs that were created before the Nuvia acquisition. They can’t be transferred to Qualcomm without permission, according to the original suit filed by Arm in the US District Court in Delaware. Nuvia’s licenses were terminated in February 2023 after negotiations failed to reach a resolution.

Like many others in the chip industry, Qualcomm relies on an instruction set from Cambridge, England-based Arm, a company that has created much of the underlying technology for mobile electronics. An instruction set is the basic computer code that chips use to run software such as operating systems.

If Arm follows through with the license termination, Qualcomm would be prevented from doing its own designs using Arm’s instruction set. It would still be able to license Arm’s blueprints under separate product agreements, but that path would cause significant delays and force the company to waste work that’s already been done. 

Prior to the dispute, the two companies were close partners that helped advance the smartphone industry. Now, under newer leadership, both of them are pursuing strategies that increasingly make them competitors. 

Under Chief Executive Officer Rene Haas, Arm has shifted to offering more complete designs — ones that companies can take directly to contract manufacturers. Haas believes that his company, still majority owned by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp., should be rewarded more for the engineering work it does. That shift encroaches on the business of Arm’s traditional customers, like Qualcomm, who use Arm’s technology in their own final chip designs. 

Meanwhile, under CEO Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm is moving away from using Arm designs and is prioritising its own work, something that potentially makes it a less lucrative customer for Arm. He’s also expanding into new areas, most notably computing, where Arm is making its own push. But the two companies’ technologies remain intertwined, and Qualcomm isn’t yet in a position to make a clean break from Arm.

Arm was acquired in 2016 by SoftBank, and part of it was sold to the public in an offering in September of last year. The Japanese company still owns more than 80 percent of the Arm.

Arm has two types of customers: companies that use its designs as the basis for their chips and ones that create their own semiconductors and only license the Arm instruction set.

Qualcomm is no stranger to licensing disputes. The company gets a large chunk of its profit from selling the rights to its own technology — a key part of mobile wireless communications. Its customers include Samsung Electronics and Apple, the two biggest smartphone makers.

Qualcomm emerged victorious in 2019 from a wide-ranging legal fight with Apple. It also won a court decision on appeal against the US Federal Trade Commission, which alleged that the company was using predatory licensing activities.

© 2024 Bloomberg LP

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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