Chinese smartphone vendor Oppo will unveil its first self-designed chip this week, following in the footsteps of Huawei Technologies, Xiaomi and Vivo, and intensifying competition among the four major Chinese smartphone vendors to a new high, experts said. The company is holding its Oppo Inno Day 2021 in Shenzhen on December 14. As early as 2019, Chen Mingyong, CEO of Oppo, said the company would invest CNY50 billion by 2021 in R&D focused on research in 5G, 6G, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and other emerging technologies. The money has been used to finance efforts to develop core fundamental architecture for hardware, and boost software capabilities.
Xiang Ligang, Director General of the Information Consumption Alliance, said that from the perspective of industry competition, each generation of wireless technology is accompanied by a reshuffle among leading mobile phone brands. As smartphone hardware becomes increasingly standardized, chips have become a key point for major handset makers to achieve breakthroughs and differentiate themselves from rivals, Xiang said. But the chip industry has always been a capital and technology-intensive industry. The investment of domestic mobile phone companies in this field is just a starting point, he added.
Oppo said it will also unveil its first foldable smartphone, and target gaming enthusiasts with a new phone that features designs based on the popular game League of Legends. The limited Reno7 Pro League of Legends edition, unveiled last week, comes with plenty of special visual designs. Oppo ranked as the fourth-largest smartphone vendor in the world in the third quarter, with its smartphone shipments increasing 18% year-on-year, the fastest growth among the top five global mobile phone brands, the China Daily reports.
