No surprise that Qualcomm focused so heavily on diversifying its business, when discussing its most recent set of financial results (see Wireless Watch 2 August 2021). In its core smartphone chip business, not only does it face rising competition from MediaTek and Chinese providers – especially as 5G moves from premium into midrange handsets – but its relationships with Apple and now Google are at risk. Apple was forced to turn to Qualcomm for its 5G modems (it makes its own processors), when a co-development with Intel foundered, but it is designing modems for future iPhones inhouse. Samsung, of course, has its own chips, though it does use Qualcomm system-on-chip designs for some of its models – but given the…