As Samsung Electronics' mobile application processor (AP) business is seen breaking a long slump with the new Exynos 2600 expected to be installed in the Galaxy S26 base and Plus models released in Korea, some consumers are voicing dissatisfaction.
With the Exynos series replacing Qualcomm's Snapdragon, which has been installed in Samsung flagship smartphones, concerns are being raised about smartphone user experience and performance. As multiple market research firms' surveys on consumers' purchase intent show overwhelming preference for Qualcomm's Snapdragon, worries are growing within Samsung Electronics' MX (Mobile eXperience) Division, which oversees the smartphone business.
According to the industry on the 20th, a consumer survey conducted by Qualcomm found that the intention to buy smartphones equipped with Snapdragon was three times higher than for smartphones with rival mobile chips. In addition, 84% of respondents rated Qualcomm as the leader in smartphone processors, and they indicated a willingness to pay an average price premium of 16%.
Findings from other market research firms are similar. In a recent global poll by PhoneArena, more than 9 out of 10 respondents chose Snapdragon over the Exynos 2600 when asked which chipset they preferred between the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 used in the Galaxy series and the Exynos 2600. The assessment was that Snapdragon holds an edge in overall stability, including battery efficiency, artificial intelligence (AI) performance, and connectivity.
In particular, as AI adoption expands and prices rise, the AP, which serves as the brain of the device, is a key consideration in smartphone purchases. Given that Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip played an important role in stable app execution in the success of the Galaxy S25, some analysts say these concerns are valid.
An industry official said, "The Snapdragon series has designed customized chipsets that fit the Android ecosystem much better than the reference designs provided by Arm by using its own cores," and added, "A variety of AI features based on Snapdragon—such as image generation, text summarization, and photo editing—already hold a favorable position across the Android developer ecosystem."
Another variable is that Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics' System LSI Division take different approaches to mobile chip architecture design. Due to performance differences between the two chips, user experiences may diverge between Snapdragon-equipped models and Exynos-equipped models. In this case, consumers in Korea and some Asian countries, where the Exynos 2600 installation has been set, may raise complaints. This is also the part the MX Division worries about the most.
Both Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics adopt Arm's semiconductor designs, but their design approaches differ significantly. Arm provides a mobile AP standard design (reference) to help fabless (chip design–only) companies develop chips more easily, but in most cases these reference designs are not sufficient for smartphones that are becoming increasingly complex and demanding higher performance.
For this reason, Qualcomm adopts a "full-custom" approach that takes only part of the instruction set based on Arm's low-power technology as the framework and rebuilds the core architecture itself to improve performance. At the heart is the "heterogeneous computing" architecture that Qualcomm has researched and developed over many years. It is a platform in which key elements integrated within the chipset—central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), Neural Processing Unit (NPU), memory, and sensing hub—perform roles independently while simultaneously acting in a complementary manner.
Samsung Electronics has also long sought to build full-custom core design capabilities like Qualcomm and Apple, but it canceled the project years ago and is now designing chips based on Arm's standard designs. While Samsung Electronics is attempting to overcome the limits of standard designs by partially modifying or optimizing them in a "half-custom" format, the prevailing assessment is that it is difficult to expect performance on par with Qualcomm and Apple.
A full-custom tailored architecture has the advantage of optimizing for the smartphone environment to elevate real-world user experience. Some chips that post respectable numbers in benchmarks fail to deliver that level of performance once installed in actual smartphones because benchmarks measure only select metrics and cannot capture the totality of perceived performance—such as connectivity, camera and audio quality, battery efficiency, charging speed, and system stability.
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics' MX Division has confirmed the Exynos 2600 for the initial batch of Galaxy S26 units for the Korean market but is reportedly concerned about potential consumer reactions. A source familiar with Samsung said, "There have been cases in the past where chips differed by country, and in some cases there were actual performance differences in smartphones," adding, "If some changes are needed depending on consumer response after the initial shipment, there is no reason not to consider them."