Intel Corp (INTC)

[Unkwn]

I wonder what kinds of profits this would be worth to Intel. I could see other companies switching to Intel if the price were right too.

I'd rather call it a way to reduce costs for Intel, which certainly is positive for the company. Intel spent billions to get into the mobile business, remember?

As to others than Apple using Intel's modem: Doubt it, since the biggest part of the market is with integrated modems. Since Intel missed the train with its Atom based solutions and integrated modems, they can only offer a discrete baseband chip, which is not competitive cost wise. That's why Intel didn't win any designs with its own mobile solutions, at least that's part of the reason. They failed to integrate their modem.

For Apple, this is fine, since they have their own processor with external modem chip anyway. Maybe Intel can offer them a sweet deal by integrating its modem chip on the same die as Apple's processor IP and making this single chip on Intel's fabs. I doubt that Intel will make much from this business, though, since Apple squeezes out other's margins to keep its own margin high. For Intel, this is still better than writing off all of its mobile and fab investments.