Source: Apple will launch an iPhone with Intel's 8161 5G modem chip in 2020; Intel will likely be the sole modem supplier for that year's iPhones
Apple's 5G iPhone will come to market in 2020, a source with knowledge of Apple's plans says. — Apple plans to use Intel's 8161 5G modem chip in its 2020 phones.
Context & Ripple Effects
This report slots into a multi-year modem saga. A year earlier, KGI projected the 2018 iPhones would lean heavily on Intel for pre-5G baseband, with 70%-80% of chips coming from Intel alongside Qualcomm — so a sole-source Intel role for 5G was an escalation of an existing dependency, not a new one.
What makes the story worth tracking is how quickly the plan unraveled: within five months came reports that Intel had missed its 5G modem deadlines, with Apple running 1,000-1,200 engineers on in-house modems, and by October 2019 Apple had pivoted to Qualcomm's X55 for all three 2020 iPhones. The eventual endpoint is visible in later coverage of Apple's in-house modems debuting in the iPhone SE.
First-order effects
- Intel stands to become the single point of failure for Apple's entire 2020 5G lineup — its 8161 roadmap, not Apple's product calendar, would set when the first 5G iPhone ships.
Second-order effects
- When Intel slips, Apple has no second source ready except returning to Qualcomm, whose X55 ends up in every 2020 iPhone — a licensing-and-chipset windfall born entirely of Intel's delay.
Third-order effects
- The failed sole-sourcing pushes Apple to internalize modem design outright, ending its run as a captive customer of merchant baseband suppliers and shrinking Intel's smartphone modem business toward exit.
The trend: Smartphone makers are moving from sourcing radios as commodity parts to owning modem silicon in-house, with supplier misses like Intel's accelerating the insourcing.