MWC 2017: The Snapdragon 835-powered Sony Xperia Z5 Premium might not be announced

Sony is now the latest in a long line of manufacturers rumoured to be delaying their respective flagship launches for lack of hardware. The upcoming Snapdragon 835-powered Sony Xperia Z5 Premium will apparently not debut at MWC 2017.

MWC or Mobile World Congress 2017 is an annual event held in Barcelona, Spain. Just about every smartphone company that’s not Apple comes here to showcase their wares, discuss new technologies and more.

If you remember, we had published a report earlier that Samsung was hoarding all the Snapdragon 835 chips . The Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC is Qualcomm’s flagship chip for 2017. The chip is expected to make its way into every flagship smartphone of 2017.

PREMIUM flagship is coming... but don't hold your breath for #MWC #mwc17 , except the secret rooms... ;) #xperia #Sony #z5premium #successor

— Ricciolo (@Ricciolo1) February 1, 2017

However, Samsung partnered with Qualcomm in developing the chip, specifically the 10nm process on which it is built. This has apparently given Samsung dibs on the first batch of chips produced and the company is claimed to be hoarding these chips for the upcoming Galaxy S8 .

The Samsung Galaxy S8 is expected to launch in late April, which means that it’s unlikely that any other Snapdragon 835-powered smartphone will launch before then.

The Xperia Z5 Premium successor was supposed to be powered by the Snapdragon 835 and backed by 4GB or 6GB of RAM. The phone was also rumoured to feature a 4K display and a brand new camera sensor in the form of the Sony IMX400.

With Samsung hoarding the chips for so long, it’s likely that Sony’s phone will only launch 5-6 months from now. Maybe that’s why Sony doesn’t want to announce the device just yet. The rumour, by Twitter user Ricciolo, suggests that the phone won’t be announced, but that it will be present at MWC and will only be accessible to a select few. It was also Riccolio who had leaked the information that the S8 won’t be debuting at MWC.

Of course, these are just rumours, so keep your fingers crossed and keep on hoping.

Read our complete coverage of the Mobile World Congress 2017