Samsung LSI sought to exploit Samsung Mobile over the past few months by repeatedly hiking the per unit price of its flagship Exynos 2600 chip. Well, Samsung Mobile now appears to be responding to these relentless price gouging tactics by reducing the share of the Exynos 2600 chip within the upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 8, while increasing its uptake of Qualcomm's more economical Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip.
Samsung's Exynos 2600 chip is reportedly falling a victim to the fairly myopic ongoing in-house feud that has rendered the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip a much more economical alternative
According to the tipster Schrödinger, the cost of the Exynos 2600 chip has risen from $220/unit in December 2025 to the much more elevated $270/unit level in May 2026. In contrast, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip currently costs just $230/unit. This means that Samsung's current flagship mobile chip is now 17 percent more expensive than its counterpart from Qualcomm.
As for the reasons behind the Exynos 2600's relentless pace of price hikes, Schrödinger identifies a host of contributing factors, including the still-elevated costs of Samsung's 2nm GAA process, the PR boom and the "AI game" going to Samsung LSI's head, and the relatively paltry contributions from Samsung Mobile, which cumulatively appear to have strengthened Samsung LSI's resolve to yield not even an inch to an in-house concessionary pricing regime.
This situation has now apparently forced Samsung Mobile to curtail the share of the Exynos 2600 chip within the upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 8, to the benefit of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. The irony is that this retaliatory measure is somewhat akin to cutting off the nose to spite one's face. After all, the Exynos 2600 chip is clearly the more efficient of the two, boasting of a TDP of 16 watts vs. 19 watts for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip.
Of course, this is not the first time that Samsung Mobile has had to suffer a setback in recent months due to Samsung's complicated internal dynamics. After all, the Mobile division nearly derailed its 'Galaxy Unpacked' event back in February after its margins were brutally squeezed by Samsung's semiconductor-focused DS division, prompting the former to then try to eke out some financial space by squeezing its distributors' margins and pushing for more "direct-to-consumer' sales.
This then led to an all-out distributor-led revolt in Dubai, where those distributors adopted "strategic negligence" as their modus operandi and "tripped over the official embargo dates," allowing the Galaxy S26 Ultra units to enter the grey market, and into the hands of a YouTuber.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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