The company thinks integration is what you need to win the hearts of customers. It has been enough to convince 60 partners to make their devices powered by Snapdragon 820.  Although we did think that Qualcomm had a lot more than 60 partners when it had the Snapdragon 810.

Sustainability of the integration model is the key to success. Qualcomm is aware of the need for increasing connectivity and included the 802.11ad a Gigabit 60 MHz protocol. This can get fast incredibly fast, but at shorter distance.

There is also LPDDR4 memory support and UFS 2.0 storage which Qualcomm thinks helps the cause to try to win as many high end devices as possible.

Samsung 8890 octa-core uses Cat 12 modem capable of LTE Cat 12 speeds of 600 Mbit download and 150 Mbit upload puts pressure on Qualcomm. Samsung will most likely use its own SoC for most of its high end devices but we would not completely exclude the fact that Samsung might use Qualcomm for some markets.

Not all modems are created equal and we expect that there will be a substantial difference between Samsung LTE modem with 600 Mbit support and the one from Qualcomm.

Antenna buster is Qualcomm own technology that helps boost LTE signal without redesigning the antenna. This is something that Qualcomm will use to pitch for a new customers. This technology can even increase a battery life by a few hours.

The company still has some unique advantages but competition in 2016 won’t be easy in the high end device design win race.