Xiaomi, Realme to Launch Snapdragon 720G Phones in India With NavIC Support

Jan. 21, 2020

At Qualcomm’s event in New Delhi today, both Xiaomi and Realme announced plans to launch phones powered by Qualcomm’s new mobile platforms in the country. Taking to the stage at the event, Xiaomi India chief, Manu Kumar Jain, announced that the company will soon launch devices powered by theall-new gaming-centric Snapdragon 720G SoCwith NavIC support. The company was already said to beworking with ISRO to integrate NavIC supportto its smartphones and other devices in India.

In a tweet posted by Jain following the event, he further hinted that devices powered by some of the other new chipsets from Qualcomm, including the Snapdragon 765G and theSnapdragon 865, are also in the offing in the coming days, possibly making it among the first to launch devices powered by all three of the aforementioned chipsets in India. He also revealed that Xiaomi will be launching 5G smartphones in the country in the coming months, although, there are no more details on the subject at this point.

In case you don’t know it already, ‘NavIC’ (sailor in Hindi) is the operational name for India’s ingeniously-developed satellite navigation system, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). Developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), it is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India and its neighborhood.

Alongside GPS (US) and GLONASS (Russia) and BeiDou (China), it is one of the few independent satellite navigation technologies in the world, and all three Qualcomm chips announced at today’s event, including the Snapdragon 720G,the Snapdragon 662 and the Snapdragon 460, will include support for the new technology.

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