Qualcomm won't make its own smartphones after all

You won't be seeing a Qualcomm or Snapdragon branded smartphone anytime soon, as company President Cristiano Amon confirmed to TechRadar that the firm has no plans to get into the handset business.

Speaking in a Q&A at the Snapdragon Summit 2020 - where we saw the new flagship Snapdragon 888 launched - Amon responded directly to a question from TechRadar regarding reports from October that the firm was working with Asus to produce devices.

"We have built different reference designs and that's what we'll continue to do," Amon explained, with these devices purely used to show off what the company's new technology can do - they are never destined for the open market.

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"We won't change the business model"

We've experience a number of Qualcomm reference devices over the years, and they generally aren't built to the standard consumers would expect, or want, from their smartphone - and Amon was clear that wasn't about to change.

"We won't change the business model, and we won't make devices for any other reasons other for technology demos", he concluded.

It had been reported that Qualcomm was working with Asus to produce a range of own-brand smartphones, but we can now put this rumor to bed and focus on the phones that will be getting the new Snapdragon 888 chipset in 2021.