Bad Apple News For Qualcomm

Shares of QUALCOMM, Inc. QCOM were trading lower by nearly 5 percent early Tuesday morning as the company's ongoing legal dispute with Apple Inc. AAPL may have taken a turn for the worse.

Qualcomm, a key member of Apple's supply chain, may be left out of future iPhone and iPad designs, The Wall Street Journal reported. Instead of using Qualcomm's technologies, Apple may be looking to build its future devices with modem chips manufactured only by Intel Corporation INTC or Taiwan-listed MediaTek Inc.

Apple started using Intel's modem chips in some of its iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models last year, but Qualcomm has historically been Apple's largest supplier. Intel's technology was once again included in some of the recently released iPhone 8 and 8 Plus models.

Shares of Intel gained more than 1.50 percent on the WSJ report, which implies Apple's relationship with Intel could be greatly expanded on. Intel's market share of the stand-alone $5 billion modem chip market is 6 percent, versus Qualcomm's 50 percent unit share and MediaTek's 25 percent share.

Nevertheless, Qualcomm appears to remain confident its relationship with Apple won't be eliminated.

The company said in a statement obtained by WSJ it is "committed to supporting Apple's new devices" and that it already has a modem prototype that not only "could be used in the next generation iPhone" but has been "fully tested and released to Apple."

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