Yes. Just a few things.
1. "$7.50 Apple was paying for 3G modems"
The $7.5, $8-9 are for Patents fees, not for Modems. Those are in $30s.
2. Apple is making their own baseband chip, why would they bother second sourcing them for the short period of time they’ll need to rely on anyone else at all?
The whole point of the 6 years deal ( including this year ) is that Apple knew they are going to take at least 3 - 4 years to get an 5G Modem. And that is if the Modem is any good compared to Qualcomm's 3 - 4 years from now. We will see if Intel decide to sell off their Modem division to Apple in one way or another.
3. Samsung
Qualcomm forbid Samsung to sell modem or Soc to anyone else. I highly doubt Qualcomm will make a new arrangement with Samsung just for them to produce and compete with themselves. And it was Qualcomm that had the upper hand in the case.
4. So if that $8-9 figure is true it’s actually a big discount (31-39%) compared to what Qualcomm was looking for.
Qualcomm wanted 5%, and they are willing to back to 3.25%. Although the price are capped to $400 since 2018, Apple had never had reached the cap as it was changed to Foxconn on its BOM cost, which even the iPhone XS Max don't reach $400. If you do an average across all iPhone, from 8, XR, XS and take it as around $250, a 3.25% gives $8.125 per phone. Now it is likely a fixed cost per unit as the license are Direct to Apple and not to Foxconn, Apple could no longer use BOM cost to shield its value.
And as it stand everything remain pretty much the same as pre Intel Modem era, except without further price increase from Qualcomm. I cant say Apple had lost, but they didn't win as they thought they would either.
