Qualcomm just poured cold water on the “all-Exynos” rumour circling the Samsung Galaxy S26 collection.
During its Q4 2025 earnings call, CEO Cristiano Amon stated that the company expects to power approximately 75% of Galaxy S26 models. That suggests Snapdragon will feature widely across the lineup, not just Exynos 2600, which is a big signal for anyone tracking performance, battery life, and regional variants.
Samsung’s usual trio, S26, S26 Plus, and Ultra, is slated for release in early 2026, with Amon explaining that “Our assumption for any new Galaxy is always going to be 75%. That’s our assumption for Galaxy S26,”. That suggests a split approach rather than a full Exynos sweep.
For months, chatter pointed towards Samsung using its own Exynos 2600 across the board in the upcoming flagship range. Qualcomm’s guidance pulls expectations back to a familiar pattern, with Snapdragon in many markets (often the US and China) and Exynos in others (often Europe and beyond).
Qualcomm also frames this as an assumption, not a final decision by Samsung, though it’s the clearest signal yet that Snapdragon will be heavily represented.
There’s a spec wrinkle in the mix, with reports noting that the Exynos 2600 is expected to be built on a 2nm process, while the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is on a 3nm process.
In theory, at least, that could tilt efficiency toward Exynos, while Snapdragon traditionally leads on peak performance and GPU grunt. The real story, as usual, will be tuning across thermals, sustained clocks, camera pipelines, and modem behaviour.
Timing-wise, the Galaxy S26 family is still expected to be announced in late January 2026, with a release to follow in mid-February, featuring the S26, S26 Plus, and Ultra models.
With Qualcomm expecting a split, buyers should once again check which chip their region is getting before pre-ordering, especially if they prioritise workloads like gaming, video capture, or on-the-go video editing.
