Apple Reportedly Wants to Buy Intel’s Smartphone Modem Business

After settling its controversial patent lawsuit with Qualcomm, Apple is reportedly looking to purchase Intel’s smartphone modem business. The company has been rumored to be interested in Intel’s smartphone business in the past, but a new report from The Information is claiming that Cupertino is in talks to buy a portion of Intel’s smartphone modem business.

It’s not clear how far the talks have come so far, but the report claims that there are chances of the deal falling through.

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Apple is apparently mainly interested in Intel’s smartphone modem business in Germany, which got big after the chip maker acquired Infineon for a whopping $1.4 billion back in 2011. Apple buying Intel’s smartphone modem business in Germany would give the company access to a wide range of talent focused on developing smartphone modems.

Intel has even said that the company has seen quite a lot of interest on its 5G smartphone modem business. “We have hired outside advisers to help us assess strategic options for our wireless 5G phone business,” an Intel spokesman said in a statement. “We have created value both in our portfolio of wireless modem products and in our intellectual property. We have received significant interest in the business but have nothing more to say at this time.”

And that could be a key acquisition for Apple. The company is falling behind in the 5G race, plus considering its relationship with Qualcomm and Intel pulling out of the 5G smartphone modem industry, the company may have no option than to work on a 5G modem itself. Acquiring Intel’s smartphone modem business could help quite a lot.

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  • MachineGunJohn

    12 June, 2019 - 11:02 am

    <p>Poor hapless Intel, they have all the tech required to build the best mobile soc and they can't manage to get out of their own way. This tech is directly applicable to 5g connected tablets and laptops as well. They appear on their way to not being competitive there either. I hope they at least retain the rights to all their ip for use in their own products if they sell. Sad to see such a once visionary company turned over to such ineffective leadership and witness mismanagement so extreme theyve nearly completely missed out of such high growth market segments.</p>

  • bill_russell

    12 June, 2019 - 2:40 pm

    <p>When you think about it, all apple does is assemble nice enclosures for electronic technology mostly invented by others. I'm not saying that doesn't take a lot of talent, but sometimes I get frustrated hearing all the accolades about the iPhone. </p><p><br></p><p>All they did was optimize a SoC somewhat around the ARM core. I'm not saying that's trivial. Then it sounds like they took all the know how from working with imagination and started making their own GPU, who implied that they "stole" much of that know how.</p><p><br></p><p>They also make the W chip. Again I'm not saying they don't know how to design electronics but again, I think they get a little too much credit for the iPhone's innovation and the first "smartphone". The tech was available and they were in the right place/right time as an industrial design company.</p><p><br></p>

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