Samsung Electronics is reportedly ending development of the successor to its Exynos Auto automotive application processor (AP), according to Korea's Munhwa Ilbo. The company will reportedly fulfill existing contracts with Hyundai Motor and BMW, then shift the development resources of its System LSI Division, which handles chip design, toward smartphone APs and image sensors. However, Samsung has not formally announced an exit from the automotive AP business. Meanwhile, its subsidiary HARMAN is developing in-vehicle systems using chips from rival Qualcomm. Even if Samsung stops developing its own AP, the Samsung Group could still continue and expand its automotive business.
Samsung reportedly ends Exynos Auto successor development, but existing contracts continue
According to a report by Korea's Munhwa Ilbo, the product Samsung has reportedly decided to stop developing is the successor to its Exynos Auto automotive AP.
The company will continue to produce and supply chips already under contract for Hyundai Motor and BMW. After production under those contracts is complete, however, it reportedly plans not to develop or mass-produce any new Exynos Auto chips.
In other words, the report does not mean an immediate halt to supply under existing contracts. Nor does it say Samsung will end development and manufacturing of all automotive semiconductors.
Samsung announced its automotive semiconductor partnership with Hyundai Motor in June 2023.
At the time, the company said its Exynos Auto V920 automotive AP had been selected for Hyundai's next-generation in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems, with a planned launch in 2025.
IVI refers to the systems that handle in-car information display and entertainment, such as digital instrument clusters, navigation, and music and video playback.
According to the official Exynos Auto V920 specifications, the chip features a 10-core Arm Cortex-A78AE CPU and supports up to six displays and 12 cameras.
Its GPU is Xclipse, based on AMD's RDNA 2 architecture, and it also includes an NPU for AI processing. It is designed to run multiple tasks at once, such as monitoring the driver's condition and displaying in-car information.
Automotive APs have requirements that differ from those of smartphone chips.
For example, if instrument or vehicle information displays stop working while driving, safety could be affected. That means a chip needs not only high processing performance but also mechanisms to detect faults and respond appropriately.
The V920 also incorporates safety monitoring circuitry that complies with the requirements of ASIL-B, an automotive functional safety standard.
However, the V920 is mainly an IVI product. Its adoption does not mean Samsung has achieved the same results with chips that control entire autonomous driving systems.
The reported withdrawal should likewise be considered separately: the decision to end development of the successor IVI AP is one thing, and the outlook for Samsung's other semiconductor businesses, such as automotive communications chips and image sensors, is another.
It is also not yet clear when the existing Hyundai and BMW contracts will be completed, or how maintenance and supply will be handled afterward.
Automotive APs are costly to develop, and design wins alone may not ensure profitability
The reported background to Samsung's consideration of scaling back its automotive AP business is high development costs and intense competition.
Automotive chips must meet stricter safety and durability requirements than chips for consumer devices such as smartphones.
In its introduction to Samsung Foundry's automotive services, Samsung assumes a vehicle lifespan of 15 years and describes packaging technology that can withstand extreme temperature changes, electromagnetic interference, and constant vibration.
This does not mean, however, that Exynos Auto supply contracts last 15 years. It means automotive chips must be designed and validated to operate for long periods in harsh environments.
Meeting these requirements demands substantial R&D and validation costs.
Chipmakers must also accommodate the different features and specifications of each automaker. Even if a chip is adopted by a major automaker, there is no guarantee that sales volumes will be large enough to recover the cost of developing the next generation.
Munhwa Ilbo reports that the heavy development burden and the difficulty of securing sufficient sales scale have been weighing on the profitability of Samsung's automotive AP business.
That said, public materials do not reveal how much profit Samsung earns from its individual contracts with Hyundai and BMW. The report alone does not establish that any particular product or contract was unprofitable.
Meanwhile, rival Qualcomm is expanding the adoption of its automotive chips worldwide.
In a January 2026 announcement, Qualcomm said that as of June 2025, more than 75 million vehicles worldwide had been equipped with Snapdragon Cockpit.
This is a cumulative figure up to that point, not annual sales or a measure of share in the overall automotive semiconductor market. Still, it shows that Qualcomm's products have been adopted across a wide range of vehicles.
The company is also rolling out Snapdragon Ride Flex, which integrates in-car information and entertainment functions with advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) processing on a single SoC.
According to Qualcomm, Ride Flex has been selected for eight vehicle development programs worldwide, and installation in production vehicles has already begun.
For such products, competitiveness depends not only on CPU and GPU performance but also on the ability to integrate multiple in-vehicle functions and on the software platform that supports them.
For automakers, adopting an integrated system may help reduce development complexity and cost compared with using different chips for each function.
Even if Samsung were to continue developing the Exynos Auto successor, it would need to differentiate its products in this competitive environment and secure continued adoption and sufficient sales volume.
HARMAN uses Qualcomm chips, so Samsung's automotive business can continue
A key factor in considering this report is HARMAN, a Samsung subsidiary.
HARMAN develops and provides in-vehicle infotainment, audio, and connected car systems.
Although it is a Samsung subsidiary, the company does not use only Samsung's Exynos Auto in developing its automotive systems.
In fact, HARMAN and Qualcomm announced on September 10, 2025 that they would collaborate on developing in-vehicle AI systems.
The collaboration combines HARMAN's Ready product portfolio with Qualcomm's Snapdragon Cockpit Elite to develop next-generation in-car systems that use generative AI.
HARMAN's Ready portfolio includes products for in-car AI assistants, AR-based information displays, and driver monitoring.
By using Qualcomm SoCs, HARMAN can develop and sell such systems without designing its own automotive AP.
The two companies also said they plan to use Snapdragon Ride Elite and Snapdragon Ride Flex for vehicle central compute units.
These SoCs are designed to run safety-critical processing such as ADAS in parallel with video and audio processing.
What matters to HARMAN is not developing semiconductors itself but integrating chips with the required performance and delivering the systems automakers want.
Therefore, even if Samsung ends development of the Exynos Auto successor, HARMAN's automotive systems business does not need to shrink.
Samsung's automotive business spans chip design, contract manufacturing, and systems
Samsung Group's automotive-related businesses can be broadly divided into three roles.
| Business | Main role | Developments confirmed in official materials |
|---|---|---|
| System LSI | Designs Samsung-brand automotive chips such as Exynos Auto | Announced Hyundai's adoption of Exynos Auto V920 in June 2023 |
| Samsung Foundry | Manufactures automotive chips designed by customers | Describes mass production for IVI using 14nm, 8nm, 5nm, and 4nm processes |
| HARMAN | Provides automotive systems and central compute units that incorporate semiconductors | Announced collaboration with Qualcomm in September 2025. Samsung's July 2026 earnings also position central compute units as a growth area |
This table organizes the roles of each business based on information published through October 9, 2026. It does not guarantee the profit margins or future continuation of any business.
The key point is that developing a branded automotive AP, manufacturing automotive chips on contract for customers, and providing automotive systems using other companies' chips are separate businesses.
Even if System LSI ends development of the Exynos Auto successor, the business of Samsung Foundry manufacturing other companies' automotive chips may not be directly affected.
HARMAN, too, can expand its automotive systems business by working with external chipmakers such as Qualcomm.
In fact, Samsung's second-quarter 2026 earnings explained that growth in HARMAN's automotive revenue contributed to improved results.
For the second half of 2026, the company said it aims to capture demand in growing automotive areas such as central compute units.
However, the HARMAN-Qualcomm collaboration was announced before this report. No causal link has been confirmed between a Samsung decision to end Exynos Auto development and the start of the Qualcomm partnership.
Still, it illustrates how Samsung could scale back its own AP development while the group aims to grow its automotive business.
Focusing resources on mobile APs and image sensors
According to Munhwa Ilbo, Samsung plans to end development of the automotive AP successor and concentrate the System LSI Division's development resources on smartphone APs and image sensors.
This direction is consistent with the business strategy Samsung has publicly laid out.
In its second-quarter earnings announced on July 30, 2026, Samsung said the System LSI Division posted record first-half 2026 revenue on higher sales of mobile SoCs and image sensors.
For the second half, the company said it aims to expand sales of next-generation high-performance mobile SoCs while strengthening the competitiveness of custom SoCs for customers and image sensors.
While the withdrawal from automotive APs has only been reported, the focus on mobile APs and image sensors overlaps with a strategy already shown officially.
Developing smartphone APs offers Samsung several advantages.
If adoption of its in-house Exynos grows, the System LSI Division can expand its sales scale.
If Samsung Foundry manufactures those chips, it can also expect higher production volumes in its contract manufacturing business.
Furthermore, for the MX Division, which handles smartphones, it could reduce dependence on APs sourced from external makers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek.
In fact, in Samsung's second-quarter results, profit in the MX and Networks business was squeezed by rising component costs.
Increasing the use of in-house APs gives the smartphone division another option for managing procurement costs.
However, simply switching the chips used within the group from externally sourced products to in-house ones does not automatically raise Samsung's overall profit.
What matters is that the in-house AP matches competing products in performance and power efficiency, achieves sufficient manufacturing yields, and keeps total costs, including development, under control.
Higher revenue at the chip design division and improved profitability for the group as a whole should be considered separately.
On the manufacturing side, Samsung is also investing in mobile semiconductors.
In its second-quarter earnings, the company outlined plans for its Foundry business to expand production of new mobile products using its second-generation 2nm process in the second half of 2026.
This supports Samsung's policy of strengthening advanced manufacturing technology and mobile chip development.
However, this plan alone does not indicate how widely Exynos will be adopted in any specific Galaxy smartphone launching in 2027, or how much profits will improve.
Munhwa Ilbo also reported that the System LSI Division is aiming for full-year profitability in 2027. For now, that is a target to be pursued through restructuring, not an outcome that has been confirmed.
What official announcements confirm about image sensor supply to Apple
In considering System LSI's future, Samsung's semiconductor collaboration with Apple is also worth watching.
Munhwa Ilbo also reports that Samsung has won an order for image sensors for Apple and has already begun mass production at its Austin, Texas plant.
However, what can be confirmed officially about the Samsung–Apple collaboration should be distinguished from product details conveyed in press reports.
In its August 6, 2025 announcement, Apple said it would introduce new semiconductor manufacturing technology at Samsung's Austin plant to supply chips for Apple products, including iPhones sold worldwide.
Apple described this manufacturing technology as new and not used elsewhere in the world.
The official announcement, however, does not state that the chips in question are image sensors. It also gives no specifics on when mass production would begin or which iPhones would use them.
Therefore, while the Apple–Samsung collaboration in semiconductor manufacturing can be officially confirmed, it cannot be concluded that the start of mass production of image sensors for Apple has been officially confirmed.
Still, Samsung's own earnings make clear that image sensors are an important business for System LSI.
The company has already said that higher sales of mobile SoCs and image sensors contributed to System LSI's revenue growth.
If supply to large customers such as Apple expands, it could widen opportunities to recover chip design and manufacturing investments without depending solely on its own Galaxy lineup.
However, the effect will depend on actual supply volumes, contract terms, and manufacturing costs, so profitability cannot be judged from the existence of an order alone.
Is leaving automotive APs a turning point for Samsung's chip strategy?
If Samsung formally decides to end development of the Exynos Auto successor, it could be seen less as an exit from the automotive semiconductor market itself than as a decision to concentrate limited development resources on businesses with greater expected profitability.
The company has multiple businesses: System LSI designs in-house chips, Foundry handles contract manufacturing, and HARMAN develops and provides automotive systems.
Therefore, even if it ends development of its own branded automotive AP, it can still manufacture automotive chips designed by other companies and continue selling automotive systems.
On the other hand, even if investment in mobile APs and image sensors is strengthened, whether that leads to better profitability will depend on future adoption scale and manufacturing costs.
In particular, the key questions are whether wider adoption of in-house mobile APs will improve Foundry utilization and reduce the smartphone division's procurement costs, and whether the image sensor business for external customers can generate continuing profits.
For Exynos Auto, it will also be necessary to confirm not only the end of successor development but how supply and maintenance support for existing customers will continue.
If the report is accurate, Samsung would maintain its involvement in the automotive market while concentrating its in-house chip development resources on mobile APs and image sensors.
Whether that strategy succeeds will depend not only on cutting automotive AP development costs but also on expanding adoption in priority areas and translating that into better profits across Samsung as a whole.