Reports say that Apple’s iPhone 7 baseband modem will be supplied by Intel.

A report from an investment banking company CLSA claimed that Intel will supply a significant portion or around 30 to 40 percent of the cellular modems into Apple's next-generation iPhone, known as the iPhone 7. Additionally, CLSA apparently claims that the iPhone 7 represents a roughly $1 billion opportunity for Intel's struggling mobile group, according to Seeking Alpha. 

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CLSA estimated that this move will increase Intel's revenue and earnings by 1.5 to 2 percent and respectively hurt current iPhone modem supplier Qualcomm's revenue and earnings by 4 percent and 2 percent.

In March 2015, it was announced that Intel's XMM 7360 4G modem would go into 2016 iPhones aimed at emerging markets. October of the same year, the company also declared that they have a thousand people or more working to get the XMM 7360 designed into an iPhone, and that Apple is interested in eventually developing an SoC pairing a 4G modem with an A-series app processor, with Intel manufacturing the SoC and providing modem IP. Qualcomm is still viewed as having a modem performance lead on the high-end.

Intel said that the XMM 7360 supports LTE category 10, which suggests downlink speeds of 450 megabits per second and uplink speeds of 100 megabits per second. This would represent a substantial improvement over the Qualcomm MDM9635 modem inside of the iPhone 6s/6s Plus, which supports 300 megabits per second download and just 50 megabits per second upload.

On the other hand, in case Apple manufactures 80 million iPhones for the September quarter; it will mean around 25 million of those phones will come equipped with Intel’s new modem chips in it. In case Intel’s chips perform better than Qualcomm’s, the latter may be in some trouble with regards to future orders.

Intel can be a stand-alone modem business and remain viable by being a supplier to Apple since it is the only major smartphone manufacturer that used stand-alone modems in all of its phones, The Motley Fool reported. 

Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 7 this September. The phone is said to have an A10 processor, a 3.5mm headphone jack, may be waterproof and could also sport wireless charging.