Qualcomm just announced the Snapdragon 720G, and now we already know who will be among the first brands globally to launch a smartphone with this processor – Xiaomi.
The Snapdragon 720G is the latest 4G LTE chipset from Qualcomm. It’s geared towards gamers, as you can tell by the “G” at the end of the name. And while Xiaomi hasn’t confirmed what device is going to run the Snapdragon 720G, it wouldn’t be too crazy to see it inside a Redmi or another device for India.
The reason behind that is because the Snapdragon 720G is meant for emerging markets like India. Where 5G isn’t going to be a reality for quite some time – still. It is still a pretty powerful chipset though, and will be plenty of power for most people.
Xiaomi is showing why it’s one of Qualcomm’s biggest customers
Not only will Xiaomi be among the first to launch a Snapdragon 720G smartphone, but it will also be among the first with a Snapdragon 865 smartphone. Though, we do know which smartphone will be running the Snapdragon 865. That’s the Mi 10, which we also expect to be announced at Mobile World Congress next month.
Xiaomi being the first to launch on two of Qualcomm’s chipsets shows how much both companies rely on each other. Xiaomi has been a pretty important partner for Qualcomm for many years. And it is now Qualcomm’s second biggest customer, behind Samsung.
Even though we see other manufacturers selling more phones than Xiaomi, others use different chipsets. Like Huawei mostly uses its Kirin chipsets, that are made in-house. Apple uses its own chipsets of course. And Samsung does a mix of Qualcomm and Exynos chipsets. Which puts Xiaomi just behind Samsung.
It’ll likely be a Redmi smartphone
It’s very likely that the Snapdragon 720G device that Xiaomi launches will be a Redmi-branded smartphone.
Seeing as the Snapdragon 720G is being announced in India and Qualcomm is putting a pretty big emphasis on it and the Indian market. It sounds prime as a Redmi chipset. And given how inexpensive, but powerful, Redmi smartphones have been, it makes perfect sense.
Xiaomi’s Manu Jain, stated that it sees “demand for high performance chipsets that support intensive usage and gaming is continuously increasing. Moreover, consumers are increasingly demanding seamless connectivity solutions.” And that Xiaomi is going to be continuing its long running collaboration with Qualcomm.