Intel CEO Shows Off the Lava Xolo Handset

Chipmaker Intel finally has a win to call its own in the smartphone market. Earlier this week, it entered into a partnership with the Indian handset maker Lava to supply chips for the Xolo handset. And, naturally, Intel CEO Paul Otellini had one to show off during an appearance on CNBC yesterday.

He calls it “the highest-performing handset on the market, as far as we can tell.” It has taken a few years to get to this point, but there’s a two-billion-unit addressable market to be carved out.

In the video below, Otellini also talks about the competitive threat — though he seems not to consider it much of a threat at all — coming from Microsoft’s Windows 8 and its variant that will support chips running the ARM architecture. How much market share does he expect to lose? None. Intel’s chips can offer the same performance and power efficiency that ARM chips do, while being 100 percent compatible with existing PC software.