BroadChain News, April 28 - Tianfeng International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo disclosed that OpenAI is collaborating with MediaTek and Qualcomm to develop a mobile phone processor, with Luxshare Precision as the exclusive manufacturer, expected to begin mass production in 2028. Following the news, supply chain stock prices rose. Analysts began calculating the incremental orders for MediaTek, the optimization of Luxshare Precision's customer structure, and the licensing revenue from Qualcomm's baseband solutions. However, the core question remains: Why would a company that is not expected to turn a profit until 2030, with cumulative spending potentially reaching $115 billion, want to build a phone?
The subscription model is hitting a ceiling. OpenAI's 2025 ARR reached $20 billion, with 500 million weekly active users on ChatGPT, but a Deutsche Bank report shows only about 5% of users pay. Even the $200/month Pro subscription is losing money, with total spending in 2025 around $9 billion, and 70% of revenue consumed by server costs. More critically, the European paying user base nearly stalled in the second half of 2025. The problem with the subscription model is that costs grow linearly with user numbers, while revenue peaks prematurely.
Both advertising and enterprise services are equally crowded. OpenAI has started testing ads and hired a monetization expert from Meta, but faces Google's trillion-dollar moat in search advertising. Enterprise service revenue accounts for over 40%, but Anthropic's programming tools have an annualized revenue of $30 billion, with its valuation once surpassing OpenAI. The third path is hardware. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar stated bluntly: "Hardware will be the next layer of value creation for ChatGPT, driving user upgrades and subscription growth."
Hardware is essentially an outlet for financial anxiety. A phone bundled with a ChatGPT subscription means users automatically pay monthly upon purchase, without needing to manually upgrade. This is similar to the logic of iPhone bundling iCloud storage. While Ming-Chi Kuo's narrative of AI agents redefining phones is a technical story, the underlying driver is more pragmatic: OpenAI needs new monetization channels to fill a nearly $10 billion annual gap. Before its planned IPO at a trillion-dollar valuation in Q4 2026, it must tell Wall Street a growth story beyond "models getting stronger." With billions of phones sold globally each year, even capturing a small slice could significantly boost the revenue curve.
The historical lessons of AI hardware are clear. Humane AI Pin raised $230 million, priced at $699 with a $24 monthly fee, but shipped fewer than 10,000 units. Whether OpenAI can avoid repeating these mistakes depends on its ability to turn technical narratives into a sustainable business model.