Paul Briden 25/01/2017 - 1:55pm

Samsung is apparently using up the supply of Snapdragon 835's for the Galaxy S8

According to a report from Forbes citing anonymous industry insiders, Samsung is buying up as many units of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor as it possibly can, which is causing a bit of a headache for other smartphone makers, including fellow Korean rival LG.

The sources go as far as saying that the Snapdragon 835 units are being bought specifically for the Galaxy S8 and there won't be enough left for anyone else until after that handset launches. Accordingly, it's thought that the LG G6 will launch with a lower-powered chipset than the 835 as LG could not procure enough units in time for the earlier MWC 2017 launch. Likewise, the HTC U Ultra uses the Snapdragon 821, apparently for similar reasons.

"I've spoken to some industry insiders in Asia today and I must apologize to HTC, because it would appear that the 835 is out of their reach until after April, so they couldn't have used the 835 without drastically delaying the phone. In fact, that's the case with almost all phones, including LG's flagship. Yup, I have confirmed with an industry insider that the LG G6 will run on Snapdragon 821 instead of the 835 that everyone's expecting," writes Ben Sin, "The reason? Samsung has first dibs."

"The Snapdragon 835 won't be available in large quantities until after the Galaxy S8 launches," said Sin's source.

The funny thing is, Samsung actually produces the Snapdragon 835 on Qualcomm's behalf using the 10nm FinFET manufacturing process, so it makes some sense that it has such a direct access to the hardware. It makes it likely that the LG G6 may also feature the Snapdragon 821.

What's not clear, is whether Samsung is buying an absolutely huge number of S835 units or whether the production rate just isn't up to demand yet. If it's the latter we would still expect some Galaxy S8 units to run on the firm's own Exynos processors - probably the international model; however, if it's the former then it's possible that ALL Samsung Galaxy S8's will be Qualcomm based for the first time ever.

Interestingly, the report also sheds some light on when the Galaxy S8 will be available.

"Apparently, the 835 won't be widely available until after the release of the Galaxy S8, which I've been told by the same source will be April 14 in South Korea," Sin wrote.