Letv’s Le Max Pro is first smartphone to use Qualcomm Snapdragon 820

Qualcomm chief executive Steven Mollenkopf said today that China’s Letv will be the first announced customer for the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor for smartphones.

Mollenkopf said that Letv will use the chip in its upcoming smartphone, dubbed the Le Max Pro. He made the announcement at a press event at the 2016 International CES, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas this week.

The chip is Qualcomm’s flagship chip for making smartphones smarter. Mollenkopf said the chip is being designed into 80 products, up from 60 in November. And Letv is the first of those to get to a product.

“These things are real,” Mollenkopf said.

The Letv product will include a feature for multi-gigabit sharing of data between devices, he said.

The next chips coming are the 820A and 820Am chips, optimized for automobile applications. Those chips are connected, smart, and aware (which means they have navigation and advanced sensors).

The 820 processor enables real-time traffic, dashboard visuals, and integration of data from sensors.

Mollenkopf noted that a decade ago, Qualcomm wasn’t even at CES. Now every industry is figuring out how to integrate communications into their businesses.

Qualcomm is targeting markets such as automotive, smart cities, wearables, networking, smart homes, data centers, health care, and smartphones. That last market is what made Qualcomm a huge company that rivals Intel, the world’s biggest chip maker.

“These markets double our market opportunity,” Mollenkopf said.