Apple was recently rumored to be planning to acquire Intel’s smartphone modem business. Today, the company is confirming the acquisition.

Apple is acquiring the “majority” of Intel’s smartphone business for $1 billion. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019 and will see a total of 2,200 Intel employees joining Cupertino.

The $1 billion purchase will expand Apple’s existing patent portfolio with new patents for current and wireless technology, bringing Apple’s total count of wireless technology patents to a huge 17,000.

“Apple is excited to have so many excellent engineers join our growing cellular technologies group, and know they’ll thrive in Apple’s creative and dynamic environment. They, together with our significant acquisition of innovative IP, will help expedite our development on future products and allow Apple to further differentiate moving forward.” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies.

Intel will continue to be able to make modems for non-smartphone products, including PCs, IoT devices, and autonomous vehicles.

Apple’s acquisition of Intel’s smartphone modem business has been a long time coming. The company’s fallout with Qualcomm after conflicts over patent fees and lawsuits led to a lot of problems for the company. But more importantly, the conflicts led to Apple not being able to deliver 5G on the iPhone as early as others in the industry. By purchasing Intel’s smartphone modem business and acquiring the patents as well as the thousands of talent, Apple will hopefully be ale to expedite the process of bringing 5G to the iPhone.

Tagged with Apple, Intel