Kuo: Apple-Designed 5G Modem May Debut in iPhones as Early as 2023

Apple plans to adopt its own custom-designed 5G baseband chip starting with the 2023 iPhones, meaning it'll no longer need to rely on Qualcomm to supply the 5G cellular modem for the iPhone, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today in an investors note obtained by MacRumors.

Apple 5G Modem Feature
According to Kuo, Apple plans to include its own custom-designed 5G baseband chip starting with the launch of the 2023 iPhones "at the earliest." Apple currently relies on Qualcomm for its 5G iPhone modems and is expected to continue its reliance until it diverts to its own chip. When the diversion occurs, Qualcomm will be forced to enter new markets to compensate for the loss of orders from Apple.

We predict that the iPhone will adopt Apple's own design 5G baseband chips in 2023 at the earliest. As Android sales in the high-end 5G phone market are sluggish, Qualcomm will be forced to compete for more orders in the low-end market to compensate for Apple's order loss. When the supply constraints improve, MediaTek and Qualcomm will have less bargaining power over brands, resulting in significantly higher competitive pressure in the mid-to low- end market.

In March, Barclays analysts reported that Apple will include its own custom-designed 5G modem starting with the 2023 iPhone. Apple's development of its own modem, which reportedly began in early 2020, has been widely reported.

Apple-designed modems can be expected to offer faster speeds, improved latency, among other benefits compared to Qualcomm or Intel modems, which powered earlier generation iPhones.

In 2019, Apple purchased the majority of Intel's smartphone modem business, a move that helped fuel the development of Apple's own in-house modem. Apple said at the time that the purchase will "help expedite our development on future products and allow Apple to further differentiate moving forward."

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
apple watch ultra 2 new black

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Finally Coming After Two-Year Hiatus

Monday June 16, 2025 8:45 am PDT by
Apple will finally deliver the Apple Watch Ultra 3 sometime this year, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong (via @jukanlosreve). The analyst expects both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 to arrive this year (likely alongside the new iPhone 17 lineup, if previous launches are anything to go by), according to his latest product roadmap shared with...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
terminal macos tahoe

Apple's Terminal App Gets Colorful Redesign in macOS Tahoe

Monday June 16, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's Terminal app is getting a visual refresh in macOS Tahoe, and it's the first notable design update since the command-line tool debuted. The updated Terminal will support 24-bit color and Powerline fonts, according to Apple's State of the Platforms presentation at WWDC25. The app will also adopt the new Liquid Glass aesthetic with redesigned themes that align with macOS 26's broader...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

Apple Says iOS 26 Won't Be Available on These iPhone Models

Tuesday June 10, 2025 6:58 am PDT by
Apple this week revealed that iOS 26 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer. That means that iOS 18 is the end of the road for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR, which were all released in 2018. However, those devices will continue to receive security updates for at least a few more years. iOS 26 is compatible with the following iPhone models: iPhone 16e iPhone...
new iphone lockscreen ios 26

iOS 26: Five Changes Coming to Your iPhone Lock Screen

Tuesday June 17, 2025 8:46 am PDT by
With iOS 26, Apple has made some additions to the iPhone Lock Screen that aim to make it more customizable than ever. Of course, things can always change before the software makes its way to the general iPhone-owning public, but here are five new things iOS 26 can do on the Lock Screen as of the current developer beta. Widgets Top or Bottom In iOS 18, the row of widgets on your Lock...
AirPods Pro 3 Mock Feature

AirPods Pro 3 Not Launching Until Next Year, Claims Analyst

Monday June 16, 2025 4:52 am PDT by
Apple may launch the AirPods Pro 3 in 2026, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong, contradicting earlier predictions of a much sooner release. Pu's Apple product timeline (via @jukanlosreve) comes as a bit of a surprise. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said in February that new AirPods with heart rate monitoring were "months away," suggesting a late 2025 launch at the earliest....

Top Rated Comments

cmaier Avatar
54 months ago

Yeah, keep dreaming. Qualcomm has been making modems a long time. Apple is just starting.
No they aren’t. They bought intel’s modem business, including most of the employees.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
54 months ago

And Intel modems were not really that great.
See prior response. This isn’t intel. It’s Apple combined with Intel’s experience.


ANyway, looking forward to coming back to this thread in a couple of years. Posters will look as dumb as the folks who said Apple could never design great iphone processors out of the gate, or the folks just a year ago who insisted that Apple‘s Arm CPUs would suck for macs.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Darth Tulhu Avatar
54 months ago
Yeah, folks.

Keep underestimating Apple here.

We know how that went the last time, right?

Apple is going to eventually "build" everything themselves.

I wonder if screens are next (no more Samsung).
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kcslc Avatar
54 months ago

No they aren’t. They bought intel’s modem business, including most of the employees.
And people loved intel’s modems…
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jprmercado Avatar
54 months ago

Yeah, keep dreaming. Qualcomm has been making modems a long time. Apple is just starting.
Well, many people said something similar when the very first iPhone came out in a sea of Nokias and Blackberrys. We all know how that eventually turned out.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmaier Avatar
54 months ago

And people loved intel’s modems…
They love Apple’s processors (which were great starting with the first one they designed from scratch), so don’t you think that Intel’s experience, combined with Apple’s excellent hardware designers, bodes well? After all, these modems are MUCH simpler than the CPUs.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)