In mid-June Patently Apple posted a report titled "Intel Ramping-Up Production of their XMM 7560 LTE Advanced Pro Modem for iPhones that could deliver up to 1 Gbps Speeds." The news was a spin-off story of one we did in April. This year's iPhones using Intel modems wasn't really in question. What was in question was who would supply Apple with 5G Network modems in the 2019 or 2020 premium iPhones and that wasn't discussed in Qualcomm's earning conference call late this afternoon in any way.

Late this afternoon SeekingAlpha posted a transcript of Qualcomm's Q3 2018 Earnings Conference call held this afternoon. In respect to modems for Apple's upcoming iPhones, Qualcomm commented (on page 5 of transcript) that "We believe Apple intends to solely use our competitors' modems rather than our modems in its next iPhone release. We will continue to provide modems for Apple legacy devices."

On page 8, Romit Jitendra Shah - Nomura Instinet asked the question: "Do you guys believe that you're locked out of that account [Apple] indefinitely?

Answer, Cristiano R. Amon, President, Qualcomm Incorporated: "Talking about your question on Apple, look, this is a very dynamic industry. I think we've been very clear, and we don't expect to be in the next product launch, and we'll continue to support them with the legacy. And I think those are decisions that are made as the industry moves and design by design.

I think we continue to be focused on technology. We feel pretty good about our modem leadership. I think we disclosed there are some very interesting, I think, third-party customer reports that show our performance, and we will continue to be investing on the modem. And if the opportunity presents itself, I think we will be a supplier of Apple."

Technically speaking, Qualcomm never talked about "Intel" being Apple's modem supplier for next-gen iPhone.

The transcript also reveals some tidbits on Qualcomm's legal cases against Apple and you could check it out in the full transcript here

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