Qualcomm Touts 5G Smartphones Under ₹9,000 With Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 SoC

Qualcomm has announced its latest smartphone processor, the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2, which it says will enable phone manufacturers to sell 5G-capable models for $99, or approximately Rs. 8,368. At its Snapdragon for India event, the company stated that India’s featurephone user base is still approximately 320 million, and that only 175 million out of 680 million smartphone users in the country currently have access to 5G networks. While the lowest-cost 5G smartphones in India currently cost around Rs. 10,000, Qualcomm believes that sub-Rs. 8,000 phones are key to driving volumes here. 

Phones using this SoC will be announced later in 2024, and Qualcomm has stated that Xiaomi and its sub-brands will be the first to market. The company has also been reported to be working with Jio to launch low-cost 5G-capable smartphones.

The Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 SoC, which was developed leveraging the company's R&D resources in India, is a slightly cut-down version of the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2, launched last year. Its main selling point is the integrated 5G modem which is capable of 1Gbps downlink data transfers. Its CPU has two performance cores and six efficiency cores. There’s also integrated Adreno graphics with hardware H.265 and VP9 video decoding for modern video streaming solutions. Platform-level features include Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.1, GPS and NavIC.

The SoC is fabricated on a 4nm TSMC process, which improves power efficiency enabling all-day battery life for smartphones, according to Qualcomm. Phones based on the Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 can also support up to 40W fast charging, getting up to 50 percent in 15 minutes, depending on battery capacity. The integrated Spectra image signal processor is also capable of supporting one 25-megapixel primary camera or two 13-megapixel cameras, video stabilisation, and image compositing to reduce noise.  

Qualcomm expects 70 percent of smartphones shipped in India to be 5G-capable this year, with that number projected to rise to 90 percent by 2026.