iQOO 16 could be first Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 to launch outside China

iQOO has confirmed plans to bring its next flagship smartphone to India. The announcement was made at a major mobile technology event in New Delhi. It signals the brand’s next step in the premium smartphone segment.

iQOO 16 announced in India with Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6

At India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026, iQOO confirmed that the iQOO 16 is headed to the Indian market. The phone will run on Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 Mobile Platform, which is built using a 2nm manufacturing process.

If it launches in India before the chipset-powered phone arrives in other international markets, the iQOO 16 could become the first device with this processor to debut outside China. Recently, the global / Indian version of the device was spotted on Geekbench with the said chipset.

The move also extends iQOO’s collaboration with Qualcomm, with the two companies focusing on bringing newer mobile technologies to consumers. The 2nm process is designed to improve processing performance and power efficiency, potentially helping the phone handle demanding workloads while managing energy consumption more effectively. However, iQOO has not shared benchmark figures or detailed performance comparisons yet.

The iQOO 16 will ship with OriginOS 7 out of the box. The software is expected to deliver a smoother and more intuitive experience, although iQOO has yet to detail its specific features for the upcoming phone.

The Snapdragon platform also includes Qualcomm’s next-generation Hexagon NPU, which is designed to accelerate on-device AI tasks. This could support smarter software features, alongside improvements in imaging and connectivity. iQOO has not yet revealed the phone’s camera hardware, display specifications, battery capacity, and charging speeds. But these specs should be identical to the iQOO 16, which debuted last month in China.

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