Samsung is reported to be looking to supply its Exynos chip tech to third party phone brands including Xiaomi and OPPO, following successful cooperation with Vivo during 2020. According to Business Korea (via GizmoChina) The deal would be for low-end SoCs for budget and mid-range smartphones, for which Samsung’s internal demand has decreased.

The Exynos AP (application processor) range was the mainstay of the company’s own products until the mid-2010s, but since then, Samsung Electronics System LSI, the division which produces Exynos has begun to look externally, citing low-profit margins for internal deals, compared to signing new clients.

The current flagship Exynos 990 was passed over in favor of the more universally recognized Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, for the South Korean variant of the Samsung Galaxy S20 series, which is said to be a major reputational setback for the Exynos AP.

It’s believed that the next-generation chip, the Exynos 1080 is the target for these new customers — boasting a 5nm micro-fabrication process and based on ARM's Cortex A78 CPUs and Mali G78 GPUs. A successor to this — the Exynos 2100 — is due in 2021.

After supplying Chinese maker Vivo with Exynos 980 and 880 units in early 2020, it is looking to other Chinese makers such as Xiaomi and OPPO, to avoid being snarled up in the ongoing feud between the US and China. In fact, the current battle has created the demand for Exynos chips, as the globally distributed Chinese vendors adopt an aggressive stance to take advantage of Huawei’s blanket ban in the US and consequential freezing out of the Google ecosystem central to the commercial Android platform.

For the impressive, but relatively unknown Samsung Exynos range, getting a foothold in growing brands, albeit for low-end chips, could kick-start a rise in recognition which may lead to orders for high-end chips further down the line. Who knows - we could see Samsung Exynos SoCs back in Samsung Galaxy flagship devices in a few years time.