Qualcomm targets Wi-Fi market in push to expand beyond phones

The San Diego-based tech company has been pushing instead into chips for automobiles, headphones, laptops and other devices. Its Wi-Fi chips are found in devices such as the “mesh” Wi-Fi routers made by Alphabet Inc’s Google and designed to help provide better coverage over an entire household.

Separately, Qualcomm is also working with phone makers such as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to bring chips for 5G, the next generation of wireless data networks, to phones.

With the new series of Wi-Fi chips, Qualcomm is hoping its two lines of business will one day come together. Both Wi-Fi 6, a new standard expected to fully roll out by 2022, and 5G technology differ from their predecessors in that they are designed to work more closely together, allowing Wi-Fi routers to more seamlessly handoff connections with mobile phones and other devices that use both kinds of networks.

Also read: Qualcomm outlook weighed down by smartphone demand

Moreover, unlike previous 4G technology where the networks were primarily owned by telecommunications companies, 5G technology will allow businesses to build their own private 5G networks to better connect large campuses, factories and other locations that remain difficult to blanket with Wi-Fi.

Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s president and chief of its chip division, said the company hopes to one day sell chips for both technologies to the makers of business networking gear.

“You should expect in the future to see us talking about integrated platforms that have both millimetre-wave [5G technology] and Wi-Fi 6,” Amon told Reuters in an interview.