Exynos 990 or Snapdragon 865, Samsung says there’s no difference in performance

A report had said Samsung’s chip division felt ‘humiliated’ as the company launched a Qualcomm-based S20 phones in its home market.

Samsung’s flagship S20 series run on Exynos 990 and Snapdragon 865 chipset depending on the market. (AP)

Samsung has responded to a report that claimed its chip division felt "humiliated" as the company had used Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chip on S20 models in Korea. Some people had also raised questions on the performance difference between the two versions.

"The Galaxy S20 is a smartphone that's been reimagined to change the way you experience the world and depending on the region, the Galaxy S20 will either ship with the Exynos 990 or the Snapdragon 865. Both the Exynos and Snapdragon processors go through the same strict and rigorous, real-life testing scenarios in order to deliver a consistent and optimal performance over the entire lifecycle of the smartphone," Samsung told Sammobile in a statement.

To simplify, Samsung is saying the performance of the Exynos and Qualcomm variants are on par with each other. In case you didn't know, Samsung sells different chip version-based models in different markets. Samsung's decision to sell Qualcomm version in its home market had surprised many.

Samsung is one of the few smartphone companies to have a chip division. The company, however, has been facing difficulties with its memory business for quite some time.

Samsung is betting on a revived demand for its memory chips from laptop makers and data centres due to a shift on focus on remote working following the Covid-19 pandemic. Analysts, however, believe the growth could be short-lived.

"The visibility for Samsung's earnings is low for the second quarter," Lee Do-hoon, an analyst at CIMB Research told Reuters.

Samsung is also hoping 5G smartphones could help improve its financial prospects in 2020.

"The global smartphone market was expected to turn to growth this year, but with virus showing signs of being prolonged, the smartphone market is contracting. But 5G smartphone demand is expected to rise," Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung's mobile and network business, had said.