Shortage of Exynos chip means 70% of first Samsung Galaxy S4s will have Qualcomm Snapdragon 600

Samsung's LSI division, responsible for manufacturing the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa chips, could not fix the production problems that they have been battling. This means that a whopping 70% of the first 10 million Samsung Galaxy S4 units that roll off the assembly line will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 instead of Sammy's home grown silicon.

The original plan was for the Qualcomm chip to be mainly used in the U.S. models of the phone. A couple of weeks ago, Samsung announced that its production schedule had the Exynos 5 processors being built in mass production not until the second quarter of this year. That meant that Samsung was faced with a choice. It could shut down production of the phone until enough Exynos 5 Octa chips were available, or it could continue to build the Samsung Galaxy S4 using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. Samsung chose the latter.

Last year, Samsung lost some sales to production problems with the Samsung Galaxy S III and this year, with the Korean based manufacturer looking to sell 40 million units of the Samsung Galaxy S4 in the first three months after launch, it could not afford to gamble that there would be enough Exynos 5 Octa chips ready. So instead, a much larger than expected number of  phones will be powered by the Snapdragon 600. And you know what? Most of those who buy the phone are not going to be able to notice any difference.

source: UnwiredView