Qualcomm Secures New Apple Patent Licensing Deal Effective 2027 Amid Modem Shift

QCOM announced on September 24 that it has renewed its global patent license agreement with AAPL, effective April 1, 2027 . Bloomberg and Reuters both carried the renewal. The company disclosed no financial terms and no duration for the new license, and John Han, who runs Qualcomm Technology Licensing (QTL), said only that Qualcomm was "pleased to extend the Apple license agreement," according to the company's announcement.

The timing matters because the existing arrangement, first signed in 2019, runs through the last day of March 2027, so the renewal avoids a gap when it lapses. Licensing is Qualcomm's QTL segment, and Apple is its most closely watched licensee.

The patent deal is separate from Qualcomm's contract to supply Apple with cellular modems, which covers smartphone launches through 2026 . That supply relationship is shrinking. Among the latest iPhones, only the U.S. version of the iPhone 18 Pro Max still carries a Qualcomm modem, while the iPhone 18 Pro, the iPhone Duo and non-U.S. iPhone 18 Pro Max units use Apple's own C2 modem, and cellular iPad Pro and iPad Air models use the previous-generation C1X .

What to watch: whether Qualcomm quantifies the Apple license on its next earnings call, since the undisclosed terms leave open whether the royalty stream is larger or smaller than today's, and how quickly the remaining modem revenue from Apple winds down once the 2026 supply commitment ends.