Once again, Qualcomm and Mediatek appear to be bringing forward their major launch events by several weeks this year. In the case of the Snapdragon 8 Elite successor, this has already been officially confirmed. On September 23, the mobile platform, potentially named Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, will be unveiled at the Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii. On the day before, Mediatek plans to unveil the next generation of its flagship SoCs with the Dimensity 9500.
As Chinese leaker and blogger Digital Chat Station recently pointed out on Weibo, this clears the way for Android OEMs to unveil new products. The Xiaomi 16 could be launched as early as September 24, together with the new Xiaomi 16 Pro Max as the top model, at least until the Xiaomi 16 Ultra launch in the first quarter of 2026. Specifically, the new Xiaomi 16 models are expected to hit the market in a launch window between September 24 and September 26, initially only in mainland China, of course.
As the leaker suggests, it's not just Xiaomi that has exciting novelties in store. "Every company" is expected to start the teaser phase for the new smartphone generations in September at the latest. Of course, this refers to Chinese manufacturers only, namely Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, Motorola and Honor, as well as various smaller brands such as RedMagic. When the new flagship phones will find their way to Europe or the US, however, is less certain. There have already been rumors of an earlier global launch of the Vivo X300 Pro, but if Samsung sticks to tradition, the Galaxy S26 series will likely be the first to herald in the new smartphone year in Europe and the US.