Qualcomm and Google team up to offer 8 years of Android updates

Qualcomm and Google have joined forces to extend software updates on Android devices. With Google’s assistance, the chipmaker has committed to providing extended vendor support to any OEM building on its most powerful chips, pushing the theoretical lifespan of Android devices to eight years. There are plenty of caveats, but this move could make your next phone more useful for longer.

The extended support window only applies to Android devices with the latest Qualcomm chipsets. To start, the eight-year support timeline will be extended to devices running the new Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform, which has powered devices like the OnePlus 13 and Galaxy S25. Later this year, the same policy will be applied to the company’s new Snapdragon 8 and Snapdragon 7-series chips, and you can expect the same deal for at least the next five generations of Qualcomm silicon.

“Through this collaboration, OEMs can more seamlessly update the software and security on their devices, ensuring a more secure and long-lasting Android experience for our users,” said Google’s Android Platform manager Seang Chau.

Snapdragon 8 and 7 chips are used in flagship and almost-flagship phones, so don’t expect a new Qualcomm-based budget phone to get anywhere near the same update commitment. There’s nothing stopping Qualcomm from offering the same deal with cheaper components, but people tend to expect phones that cost more to last longer. A cheap phone might not even make it eight years before something breaks or you get tired of how slow it is, and OEMs aren’t incentivized to spend the money supporting cheap hardware.

Currently, Samsung and Google lead the market with seven years of guaranteed security patches and OS updates. With Qualcomm’s help, other companies could reach similar heights. With Qualcomm’s support, OEMs will be able to provide eight years of security patches, and there will also be at least two updates to the vendor’s Android Common Kernel during that time. This will make it easier for OEMs to release full Android OS updates even toward the end of a device’s lifespan.