Qualcomm Warns Snapdragon Shortage

Looks like there is another thing to add to the shortage list (let’s get a move on the those hard drives people). During a conference call to investors, mobile chip manufacturer Qualcomm, who makes the best-selling mobile phone processor chips, announced recently that they are expecting a shortage on the amount of processors in the coming months, specificity on the S4 processors. The reason for the shortage, said by Qualcomm, is that they cannot meet the demands for the chip; not knowing how widely the processors is used. Qualcomm said that their third-party factories, that Qualcomm subcontracts, cannot create enough supply until the end of 2012.

This impact will cause a shortage of phones running either Google’s Android mobile operating system or the Windows 7 mobile operating system; though Qualcomm admits that the manufacturers that currently use their 32 nm processor for their production of phones will most likely switch to other companies to power their mid-range handsets. Though Qualcomm is expecting a shortage on the S4 32 nm processors, they have said that it will attempt to offer alternative chips to plug the gap.

In a conference call with its investors, Qualcomm said,

“We’ve been helping customers to see how they can swap in our Fusion 2 chipset… [but] we do expect to see some alternative non-Qualcomm chipsets used to solve that issue as well.”

“Looking forward, this will impact shipments of mass-market smartphones as firms re-engineer their devices, but having said that, I think the industry should not take too long to catch up,”

A transcript of the conference call can be seen HERE.

The shortage spells disaster for those devices that use the Snapdragon and we could see a price hike on the way.