According to a new rumor by Ice Universe, a Weibo (Chinese social network) leakster, Samsung might get the initial supply of the Snapdragon 845 chips next year (for the Galaxy S9), as it did this year (for the Galaxy S8). According to the source, Qualcomm and Samsung already have an agreement in place, which are bad news for some other smartphone manufacturers out there, as some of them suffered this year because of it, and it seems like the same will happen in 2018 as well..
The source did not really say any more than that, but if the info is to be believed, smartphone manufacturers like LG, for example, may need to use older chips for its flagship devices next year, at least ones that get released in the first half of the year. This year, Samsung managed to get the initial supply of the Snapdragon 835 SoCs, which forced LG to use the Snapdragon 821 in the LG G6, and the same happened to HTC as well, as the company utilized the Snapdragon 821 in the HTC U Ultra which was announced earlier this year. The HTC U Ultra was announced back in January, while the LG G6 landed in February. Having said that, both of these devices would have probably been equipped with the Snapdragon 835, if Samsung did not have an agreement in place with Qualcomm. This info is not confirmed, but considering that both companies used older SoC, and considering how many reports surfaced claiming Samsung trumped both HTC and LG, such info is to be believed.
That being said, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus are expected to land either in the first quarter of next year, or in April. The two devices will probably resemble the Galaxy S8 smartphones quite a bit, though Samsung will almost certainly make some aesthetic changes. The Galaxy S9 handsets may ship with an in-display fingerprint scanner, though nothing has been confirmed just yet. It seems like Samsung will, once again, release two SoC variants of the Galaxy S9, the Snapdragon 845 is said to fuel the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus in the US and some other markets, while Samsung’s very own Exynos flagship SoC will do the same in Europe, Korea, and a number of other regions.