Apple suspends self-developed WiFi chip process, Broadcom will benefit from it

On January 10, Bloomberg reported that Apple is developing its own WiFi and Bluetooth chips, which will be launched as soon as 2025 to replace Broadcom's chips. In Apple's follow-up plan, it will also develop baseband, WiFi and Bluetooth integrated chips. Affected by the news, Broadcom's stock price fell that day.

However, recently, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed that Apple's project to develop a WiFi chip has been suspended and will be delayed for a while. Guo Mingji said that Apple hopes that the chip team will focus on the development of 3nm products, because of the shortage of manpower, it has to temporarily put aside the self-research work of WiFi chips and 5G basebands.

Ming-Chi Kuo clarified that Apple’s previously developed WiFi solution was a WiFi-only chip, not the rumored WiFi and Bluetooth combo chip. The combination of these two technologies is even more challenging for Apple.

He believes that in the next two to three years, with the changes in standards and the adoption of WiFi 6E and WiFi 7, Apple will face risks in using its own WiFi chips. Therefore, he believes that now Apple will start to adopt WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 chips for its devices, and Broadcom will benefit from it.