Multi-Company Report
February 22, 2016 Equity Research MWC Trade Show: Smartphones, IoT, Automotive Today (2/22/2015) at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain we were interested to see various chip companies like Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTek and Infineon highlighted chip technology for smartphones, drones, wearables, virtual reality and automotive applications. Qualcomm announced its 820 Semiconductors processor will be used in Samsung’s Galaxy S7 series phones in some regions. We think that Samsung’s decision to use the Snapdragon 820 processor in its flagship Galaxy S7 family of smartphones suggests that Qualcomm has fixed the issues with the prior generation Snapdragon 810 family of chips that impacted Qualcomm competitively in 2015. We are reiterating our Outperform rating on Qualcomm (QCOM, $51.28). Qualcomm announced the latest Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge for select regions will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor with the integrated Snapdragon X12 LTE (long term evolution) modem. In addition the new LG G5 smartphone, HP Elite X3 and Sony Xperia X Performance will be based on Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 820 chipset. Intel’s booth emphasized wireless and 5G demonstrations, along with network and cloud demonstrations using NFV (network functions virtualization). Intel also had examples of connected devices using its solutions including smart eyewear, wireless charging and an Intel Curie based wearable payment device. We think that Intel’s early investments in 5G, its efforts to build its 4G LTE cellular modem position, its portfolio of other shorter range wireless capabilities and its expertise in processors will help Intel establish itself as an important chip provider in the IoT (internet of things) space in the future.
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