Samsung's Galaxy S21 may have a new rival from the company that provides the silicon brains.

DigiTimes reports that chipmaker Qualcomm is looking to enter the smartphone market and plans to release a phone as early as this year. Qualcomm plans to enter the smartphone market with the help of Asustek Computing, known for its Asus laptops and phones, including the Asus ROG Phone 3.

According to the report, Asus will be responsible for design and hardware, while Qualcomm will be responsible for industrial design (the more practical aspects that determine the phone's interior and exterior appearance) and the new Snapdragon, expected to be the company's flagship silicon in 2021 The company will be responsible for software integration with the 875 chipset.

The two companies will also share components in cell phones. Thus, this new Qualcomm device is expected to have the same features as the ROG Phone, except with a different brand name.

According to sources cited by DigiTimes, we should expect a quick ramp-up in production: the Asus-Qualcomm partnership is expected to ship 500,000 units per year from Qualcomm's new brand, with another 500,000 ROG Phones coming in, for a total 1 million units, an ambitious figure.

With Qualcomm on board, the venture will have easy access to the most powerful chipsets available for Android phones, and probably at a lower price. This could allow the new phone to undercut existing rival gaming phones such as the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel and RedMagic 5G.

This could also mean a new potential competitor for Samsung, the undisputed king of Android phones: the Galaxy S21, expected to arrive in February 2021, will use the Snapdragon 875, as will Qualcomm's new model. While Samsung's phones are not overtly gaming-specific, the company's recent partnership with Xbox's cloud gaming platform, xCloud, indicates that the company is interested in competing for gamers as a group.

Qualcomm is expected to hold an event on December 1-2 to announce a new flagship chipset for next year. If Qualcomm were to announce a cell phone as well, this would be a great opportunity, but for the time being this is just speculation.