Finance Association News on October 15th (Editor Shi Zhengcheng) The American mobile chip giant $Qualcomm (QCOM.US)$ The stock price surged significantly on Monday as renowned technology industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo publicly predicted that the company's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen4 chip, set to be released next week, will experience a significant increase in shipment volume.

As a competitor against Apple A18/A18 Pro and MediaTek Dimensity 9400, Qualcomm is expected to unveil the latest generation flagship mobile chip Snapdragon 8 Gen4 at the Snapdragon Summit next week. It is expected that various Chinese smartphone manufacturers will closely follow the release schedule, eagerly launching new flagship smartphones in order to compete for the shipment advantage of being the first to market with '8 Gen4'.

Ming-Chi Kuo: Strong Shipment Momentum

In the latest market analysis released on Monday, Ming-Chi Kuo stated that the highest priced Snapdragon 8 Gen4 among Qualcomm's smartphone SoCs will see a large shipment increase in the fourth quarter of this year.

He pointed out that compared to the previous 8 Gen3, the new chip's shipment volume in the second half of 2024 will increase by 50% to around 9 million units, while the unit price of chips using Taiwan Semiconductor's 3nm 'N3E process' will also increase by 15% to $180. It is expected that Snapdragon 8 Gen4 will significantly contribute to Qualcomm's performance in the fourth quarter of this year.

The increase in chip prices also means that smartphone manufacturers need to put more thought into pricing strategies. One not-so-bad news is that the main competitor Dimensity 9400 also saw a nearly 20% price increase this year.

Kuo Ming-Chi interpreted that the surge in shipment volume is not only due to longer shipment times and increased demand from Samsung, but also the recent positive changes in the Chinese smartphone market.

He stated that during the recent National Day holiday season, the market share of Chinese brand smartphones reached 80%, with a year-on-year growth of about 20% (similar to the iPhone), and this trend is expected to continue into the fourth quarter. At the same time, the market share of high-end phones (priced at 4000 yuan or more) in China is projected to grow from 25%-30% in 2023 to 30%-35% in 2024.

Against this backdrop, Ming-Chi Kuo expects the shipment volume of the Chinese smart phone market to grow by 3% to 0.28 billion units this year, and it is expected to continue growing next year.

Can we expect good performance?

According to Qualcomm's "official disclosure," the 8 Gen4 will be equipped with a "super-enhanced" Oryon CPU, with improvements also connected to the NPU closely related to artificial intelligence. The Oryon CPU is not a new concept, having previously appeared in the laptop chip Snapdragon X Elite, indicating a significant performance improvement.

Previously leaked test data shows that the clock frequency of 8 Gen4 can reach 4.0GHz (and even higher!). For comparison, the highest frequency of 8 Gen3 is 3.3 GHz (Samsung has a version of 8 Gen3 that can reach 3.39 GHz).

Currently, images of GB6 running scores circulating on the Internet show that smartphones equipped with 8 Gen4 can achieve single-core scores of over 3000 points, and multi-core scores exceeding 0.01 million points. In comparison, the single-core score of the Galaxy S24 Ultra with 8 Gen3 is around 2200-2300, while the multi-core score of the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max is around 8300.

The official also revealed that the 5G chip of 8 Gen4 will be upgraded to X80, meaning faster transmission speeds, more energy-efficient, and smarter - capable of finding the best base station and 5G frequency for connection in real-time.

Ming-Chi Kuo also stated that Qualcomm's stock price has already fully reflected the impact of Apple independently developing 5G chips, so the company's stocks are not only expected to benefit from the stronger-than-expected growth momentum in the fourth quarter of 2024 but also from favorable trends in 2025.