Xiaomi CEO says no US launch yet, but its first phone w/ Snapdragon 845 will be Mi 7

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun sat down today in a small roundtable discussion with journalists and said that the company’s first phone with the Snapdragon 845 will be the Mi 7. The CEO also said that while it still has its sights set on a US launch, it’s going to take “careful preparation” to get to that point…

The Snapdragon 845 processor was announced today at the Snapdragon Tech Summit in Wailea-Makena, Hawaii, but the summit is also a venue for Qualcomm’s many partners to debut products that take advantage of its new technologies. For today, that has mostly meant “always-on” Windows PCs based on the Snapdragon 835 from companies like HP And ASUS.

But tomorrow will be the big day for details on the Snapdragon 845, the system-on-a-chip that’s expected to power pretty much every flagship Android phone next year. This afternoon (Hawaii time, of course), Lei Jun touched on some Snapdragon 845-related topics, specifically that the company’s forthcoming Mi 7 will be its first phone with the chip.

But even as the Mi 7 prepares to launch with the latest Qualcomm silicon, the question still remains for those located in the US: Will we be able to buy it? Apparently, the answer is no — Lei Jun says Xiaomi isn’t ready for the US market yet.

“We hope to be an immediate success in the US so we need a lot of time and careful preparation to achieve that,” he said.

We expect to hear more about the Snapdragon 845 — and potentially some tidbits about forthcoming phones that will pack the chip — tomorrow. Exact specifications for the new chip and perhaps benchmarks comparing it to current-generation Snapdragon chips and its competitors should also come out tomorrow. So stay tuned as we keep… working hard… to bring you news here in Hawaii.