Qualcomm, Android phone makers are working on new messaging feature

• Qualcomm is working with a group of Android smartphone manufacturers to offer satellite-based messaging features.
• Qualcomm said earlier this year that the capabilities would be added to its chips.
• Qualcomm work with Android device.

Qualcomm Inc. announced on Monday that it is working with a group of Android smartphone manufacturers to offer satellite-based messaging features to their products.

The San Diego California-based company, which is the world’s largest supplier of processors that connect mobile phones to wireless data networks, said it is developing the handsets in collaboration with Honor, Lenovo-owned Motorola, Nothing, OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi Corp.

Satellite communications may transmit and receive data in remote or rural areas where other telecommunications networks do not exist. Qualcomm said earlier this year that the capabilities would be added to its chips.

Qualcomm’s work with Android device makers is likely to exacerbate competition between those companies and Apple Inc. which last year announced the ability to transmit emergency satellite messages as one of the headline features of its newest iPhone lineup.

Such new iPhones use a Qualcomm chip, but Apple told the media that they also include unique hardware and software that is private to Apple.

Qualcomm did not specify a release date for the new satellite messaging features that the Android smartphone companies announced on Monday. Qualcomm stated earlier this year that some Android phones would get the functionality by the second half of this year.

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