Apple completes its acquisition of Intel’s modem business

Intel’s attempts to venture into the mobile market have been an unmitigated disaster. After losing to ARM on the CPU front, Intel hoped to gain access to the lucrative market with modems, but over time it became clear that the company couldn’t compete with Qualcomm, despite the desire of industry giants like Apple to move away from Qualcomm products.

With Intel seeing no future in the smartphone modem business, and Apple’s desire for independence from Qualcomm modems, it is easy to see a deal was struck between the two companies. Earlier this year, Apple confirmed that they had signed an agreement with Intel to acquire the company’s smartphone modem business for $1 billion, a business which will come with 2,200 Intel employees and 17,000 patents.

This deal has allowed Intel to focus its 5G efforts on technology for 5G networks and on 5G modems for non-smartphone applications. This means that Intel can still create 5G models for PCs, IoT devices and self-driving vehicles. 

Today, Apple’s deal with intel has been completed, allowing Apple to create its own 5G modems and to integrate these modems into Apple’s future SOCs more tightly. This could help Apple create stronger products at lower production costs. 

Apple wants to own all the essential technologies that the company requires to operate. This self-sufficiency prevents them from paying accessive royalties to 3rd parties while enabling them to focus their technological developments on areas which they deem as critical. A recent example of this is Apple’s move to design its own GPUs with recent iPhone SoCs, moving away from Imagination Technologies to become more self-reliant.