Xiaomi recently split its Redmi brand into a separate entity and launched the Redmi Note 7 smartphone in China. Now, amid the rumors of Redmi Note 7 Pro launch, reports were making rounds for a flagship Redmi smartphone powered by Snapdragon 855 SoC.
Now, Lu Weibing, Vice President of Xiaomi and Head of Redmi brand, confirmed through Weibo post that the company will launch a Redmi branded smartphone powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 855 chipset. The development comes ahead of the launch of Xiaomi Mi 9, which is the company flagship smartphone and the first one from Xiaomi to be powered by Snapdragon 855 SoC.
Currently, there are no more details available regarding this upcoming Redmi flagship phone. However, the phone is unlikely to pack Snapdragon X50 5G modem given that the company has placed the Redmi brand in the “affordable” range, similar to that of POCO.
This also creates a bit of confusion regarding the company’s product placements. When launched, there’s a possibility that the Redmi flagship phone and the POCO phone could directly compete against each other. However, the company could also opt not to launch either of the two — POCO flagship and Redmi flagship, in the same market.
The launch of the Snapdragon 855-powered smartphone isn’t expected to take place before mid-2019. So far, the newly formed Redmi brand has launched two smartphones — Redmi Note 7 and Redmi Go – an Android Go-powered entry-level phone.
Meanwhile, Xiaomi is gearing up to launch the Redmi Note 7 smartphone in the Indian market and has already scheduled a launch event on 28th February. It is expected to be priced around ₹10,000 for the base variant in India. To know for sure, we’ll have to wait until the phone goes official in India.
