Qualcomm Hints Samsung Galaxy S6 Won't Use the Snapdragon 810

Qualcomm, the chipmaker that has been in news for its controversial Snapdragon 810 processor, on Wednesday confirmed that the chipset will not be powering a flagship device of a "large customer" this year. Notably, the processor has been announced by two major manufacturers for inclusion in their flagship devices - the LG G Flex2 (scheduled to release in South Korea on Friday), and the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro (scheduled for a tentative March release).

The chipmaker made it clear in its press release that it has lowered its outlook for the second half of fiscal year 2015 because of its "expectations that [the] Snapdragon 810 processor will not be in the upcoming design cycle of a large customer's flagship device." The company as expected, did not mention the company or the flagship device it would be missing from - though with all the past rumours, it is quite clear.

Qualcomm Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf told analysts (via Reuters) on a conference call that the Snapdragon 810 performs well, and is currently set to used in 60 devices.

We have been witnessing numerous rumours about delays and issues with the Snapdragon 810 since early December, which extended to Samsung reportedly ditching the chipset for the Galaxy S6 in favour of its own home-brewed octa-core Exynos 7420 with 14nm architecture. Both Samsung and Qualcomm are however, yet to confirm their sides of the story.

Samsung reportedly tested the Snapdragon 810 and found it had issues with overheating, a report that was later refuted by LG, which said the performance of the processor was "quite satisfactory".

Later, it was also reported that Qualcomm has acknowledged the overheating issue, and has a fix scheduled. The chipmaker was said to be developing an updated version of the chipset for Samsung which would be released in March, which fits in with the expected March unveiling of the Galaxy S6. However, none of this have been confirmed by Qualcomm or Samsung.

It remains a possibility that Samsung as reported earlier would initially rollout the Galaxy S6 with its own Exynos processor, and later release about 10 percent of the total units with the Snapdragon 810 processor.

Qualcomm also announced its first quarter results for the fiscal year 2015. The firm reported a revenue of $7.1 billion, up 7 percent from the year-ago quarter and slightly more than what the analysts expected - $6.94 billion, as per Reuters. It also reported a first quarter net income of $2 billion, up 5 percent from the year-ago quarter. The firm added that it is expecting fiscal 2015 revenue between $26.0 billion and $28.0 billion, which is lower than the previous estimate of between $26.8 billion and $28.8 billion.

Mollenkopf on the conference call also spoke of "product challenges" with another chip in China that may have left the door open for its rivals, adding, "We have already addressed many of the initial product challenges in order to support early customer device launches in these tiers and are continuing to further enhance the performance of this chip."