Inside Samsung’s chip factories, a new processor has begun moving off the line. The company has started mass production of the Exynos 2700, according to Korean outlet The Elec, with an output target more than 10 percent above the previous generation. The extra volume is meant to make room for a new phone, and it comes as Samsung raises prices on some of its cheapest handsets.
The Exynos 2700 is Samsung’s in-house flagship mobile processor, and its production schedule says something about the company’s confidence in the chip. The Elec reported on October 2 that the target for the 2700 is set more than 10 percent higher than the Exynos 2600, with the additional capacity reserved for the new Galaxy S27 Pro. Samsung has not confirmed the figures.
The chip will not go into every phone. The Galaxy S27 standard, Plus and Pro models will use the Exynos 2700 in South Korea and Europe, while versions sold in the United States and China will run Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, the report said. Samsung has long split its flagship lineup this way, using its own silicon in some markets and Qualcomm’s in others. Which chip powers the top-end Galaxy S27 Ultra has not been decided.
The Exynos name carries baggage. Samsung’s earlier flagship chips were criticized for running hotter and draining batteries faster than Qualcomm’s equivalents, and the company briefly dropped Exynos from some top models while it reworked the design. The 2600 was meant to reset that reputation, and the 2700’s higher production target is a bet that the reset took.
The split is one of the more closely watched decisions in the mobile industry, because it is a proxy for how well Samsung’s foundry business is doing against TSMC. Exynos has a history of trailing Snapdragon on power efficiency and heat, and the choice of which markets get which chip is often read as a judgment on the silicon itself. A higher production target for the 2700 suggests Samsung believes it has closed part of that gap, or at least that it is willing to bet more volume on its own design.
The chip news arrived alongside a quieter price change. Samsung has raised the U.S. prices of several Galaxy A-series phones, including the A57 and A37, by $50 to $70, with the rising cost of memory given as the main reason. The A series is Samsung’s volume business, the line that fills the middle and lower end of the market and does the heavy lifting on global unit sales.
The memory squeeze cuts both ways for Samsung. It is one of the world’s largest makers of DRAM and NAND, so the same AI-driven demand that raises costs for its phones also lifts revenue at its semiconductor division. That dual role is why the price increases on the A series read as an accounting decision as much as a market one: the phone unit pays more for chips the company sells itself.
Memory is the right culprit. Prices for DRAM and NAND have climbed through the year as demand for AI servers pulls supply away from phones and PCs. Phone makers have absorbed some of that increase and passed on the rest. A $50 to $70 move on a budget phone is a bigger percentage jump than the same dollar amount on a flagship, and it is the kind of increase that can push shoppers toward older models or rival brands.
Taken together, the two moves show Samsung fighting on two fronts with one set of resources. It is trying to make its own chips good enough to keep its most profitable phones on Exynos, and it is trying to keep its budget phones competitive while component costs rise. Both efforts run through the same foundries and the same memory lines, which is why the price of memory and the fate of the 2700 are connected stories.
What happens next depends on a few unanswered questions. The decision on the Galaxy S27 Ultra’s chip will signal how far Samsung trusts the 2700 at the very top of its lineup. The A-series price increases will be tested by holiday demand, when a $70 difference is easiest for consumers to notice. And the 2700’s production target will be tested by yield, which has been the persistent weakness of Samsung’s chip ambitions.
Samsung has spent years promising that Exynos would catch up to Qualcomm and that its foundry would close the distance with TSMC. The 2700 is the next chance to prove it. The price increases on the A series, meanwhile, are a reminder that even the world’s largest phone maker is not immune to the cost of memory. The chip has to be good enough, and the price has to stay low enough, for both bets to hold.
