Qualcomm's Strategic Position in the Smartphone Modem Market

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Apple sued Qualcomm, saying it was using its market position as the dominant smartphone modem supplier to force manufacturers into paying excessive fees. Apple has always used either Samsung processors in the first iPhones until they switched to their own. The way that I essentially perceived this and why Apple eventually initiated the lawsuit is Qualcomm got greedy. They leveraged those patents in basically every way possible.

Qualcomm, or “Quality Communications” — despite being one of the largest technology companies in the world, few people know the absolutely amazing technological and business history behind it. Seriously, this story is on par with Nvidia, TSMC and all the great semiconductor giants. Without this single fabless company based in San Diego, there’s almost no chance you’d be consuming this episode on whatever device you’re currently listening on — a fact that enables them to earn an incredible estimated $20 for every new phone sold in the world. We dive into this story live at the perfect venue: our first-ever European live show at Solana’s Breakpoint conference in beautiful Lisbon, Portugal!

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