Apple to pay less than US$0.30 in license fees per ARM chip and discontinue its own 5G modem

Whether the Apple A17 Pro in the iPhone 15 Pro or the Apple M2 Ultra in the Mac Studio - all of Apple's current SoCs are based on ARM architecture. As The Information reports, less than 5% of British semiconductor specialist ARM's sales come from Apple. With annual sales of $2.68 billion, this corresponds to a total of $134 million.

Apple is expected to pay less than $0.30 in license fees per iPhone sold, less than all other smartphone manufacturers. Qualcomm and MediaTek each pay around twice as much as Apple for their ARM license, although the exact details of the fees per chip sold are not known. The fact that Apple was able to negotiate such an advantageous deal is said to be due, among other things, to the fact that the technology giant from Cupertino would have considered using a different architecture, for which the license-free RISC-V architecture would come into question, for example.

Since the Apple A17 Pro costs around $130 to produce, license fees account for less than 0.2% of manufacturing costs. Meanwhile, Naver reports that Apple has given up on developing its own 5G modem. This rumor should be viewed with caution because, according to previous reports, the development has only been delayed; the first products with an Apple modem are not expected before 2025.