That's our assumption for Galaxy S26: Qualcomm CEO reveals expectations for future Samsung flagship smartphones like Galaxy S26 Ultra launching with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoCs

Every year, confusion reigns about what chipsets Samsung will be using its next-generation Galaxy S flagship smartphones. Often, it seems that Samsung has been sowing these seeds in advance by frequently changing whether it equips all or just some of its Galaxy S series smartphones with Exynos or Qualcomm chipsets. For instance, Samsung was spotted prototyping various Galaxy S25 models with the Exynos 2500 before eventually only using the chipset inside the Galaxy Z Flip7 (curr. $1,099 on Amazon).

In recent weeks, there have been suggestions that Samsung could be moving away from only using Qualcomm chipsets in the forthcoming Galaxy S26 series. As we discussed earlier this week, it seemed that Samsung may only utilise the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for the Galaxy S26 Ultra. By contrast, the Exynos 2600 was rumoured to power the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus. Qualcomm's recent Q4 Earnings Conference Call attests as much, with the manufacturer believing that Samsung and Xiaomi, among others, will favour in-house chipsets over Qualcomm's.

As with previous years, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon has shed more light on the state of Samsung's Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 series adoption on the Galaxy S26 series. In the same earnings call, the CEO elaborated:

Second part is our relationship with Samsung. We have said for a number of years -- a number of reasons. And that's been true in the past, I think, several years that what used to be a normal relationship at a 50% share, the new baseline is about 75% share. And that is always going to be our financial assumption. When we out-execute, sometimes we get more than 75%. On Galaxy S25, we got 100%. Our assumption for any new Galaxy is always going to be 75%. That's our assumption for Galaxy S26.

Incidentally, ET News has expanded upon this figure by claiming that the split between Exynos and Snapdragon chipsets for the Galaxy S26 series may return to what we saw with the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy S24 Ultra. For the most part, the Galaxy S26 series will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. However, the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Plus will launch in Europe and South Korea with the Exynos 2600 for what ET News considers to be around 30% sales volume, not 25% as Amon assumes. Regardless, Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 Plus and Galaxy S26 Ultra simultaneously on February 25, 2026, in San Francisco.