Oppo – Son Tung MTP phone brand that used to be an ambassador is in danger of “flying color” in Europe?

Tram Ho

Oppo, the world’s fourth-largest Chinese smartphone maker, is facing a strategic overhaul of its overseas business.

Oppo - Thương hiệu điện thoại Sơn Tùng MTP từng làm đại sứ có nguy cơ sắp 'bay màu' tại châu Âu? - Ảnh 1.

According to Nikkei Asia, Oppo, the world’s fourth largest Chinese smartphone maker, is facing a strategic overhaul of its overseas business after the German government announced it would stop selling smartphones. company’s products.

Accordingly, users will not be able to access Oppo’s official German website. Instead, the page only shows a brief message: Product information is currently unavailable.

The unusual development stems from the fact that Oppo lost a lawsuit against Nokia – a Finnish telecommunications equipment supplier. It is known that Nokia has accused Oppo of arbitrarily using its technology patents without permission. In August, a court in Germany announced that the country would stop selling Oppo smartphones.

The ban only applies to new products. Users who own Oppo smartphones in Germany will continue to use the product and receive all support policies from the company, including software upgrades or warranty, repair …

Oppo first entered Europe in 2018, and sees Germany as a key market in the region. The court’s ruling is therefore considered a heavy blow for the smartphone manufacturer.

Oppo - Thương hiệu điện thoại Sơn Tùng MTP từng làm đại sứ có nguy cơ sắp 'bay màu' tại châu Âu? - Ảnh 2.

Oppo, the world’s fourth-largest Chinese smartphone maker, is facing a strategic overhaul of its overseas business.

According to Nikkei Asia, Nokia is expected to continue to file additional lawsuits against Oppo outside of Germany. This means that the smartphone of this brand may be banned from selling in some other markets. Billy Chan, Oppo’s Vice President of International Sales, said that Europe is an important market and the company always wants to give customers the most innovative products. However, troubles with Nokia made this prospect vanish.

Meanwhile, Oppo has also faced challenges in India, a market it entered in 2014. In July, the Indian government announced a fine of $550 million to Oppo’s subsidiary for evasion. tax. In April, another Chinese smartphone brand, Xiaomi, was also seized by India with $725 million.

Oppo was founded in 2004 in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, China. Initially, the company was just an audiovisual division spun off from electronics manufacturer BKK. The company’s founder and CEO, Tony Chen, is a former executive at BBK. Vivo, another low-cost smartphone brand, is also part of BKK, but is managed separately and often competes with Oppo.

Oppo in the early days only sold MP3 players and switched to smartphones in 2011, focusing on the low-cost segment but outstanding design and many complex features. These phones have attracted a large number of young consumers.

By 2016, Oppo rose to the top of the Chinese smartphone market. The company expanded operations in foreign markets, including Thailand in 2009, then entered Europe, Mideast, Africa and some other markets. Oppo also entered the Japanese market in 2018.

Oppo - Thương hiệu điện thoại Sơn Tùng MTP từng làm đại sứ có nguy cơ sắp 'bay màu' tại châu Âu? - Ảnh 3.

Previously, US sanctions against Huawei Technologies were believed to be an opportunity to help Oppo attract a large number of rival customer segments.

The US sanctions against Huawei Technologies are said to be an opportunity to help Oppo attract a large number of rival customer segments, while realizing its ambitions for further expansion.

Now, however, Oppo is starting to lose ground, as the Chinese smartphone market is expected to drop to a 10-year low due to the pandemic. Oppo also faces stiffer competition from other low-cost phone makers, such as Vivo and Huawei spinoff Honor.

To compensate for the difficulties in China, Oppo is constantly promoting its business in foreign markets – which contributed to more than 50% of Oppo orders in 2021.

The expansion of foreign scale has thus become an urgent issue, especially in the Middle East and Africa region. Last month, Oppo also joined hands with the Egyptian government to build a smartphone factory. The initial investment capital for the factory reached 20 million USD, with an expected annual capacity of 4.5 million units. This is expected to become a new production center to help Oppo reach foreign users. In Latin America, Oppo is also planning to upgrade its sales operations.

According to Nikkei Asia, Oppo has just launched a Global Community platform consisting of online spaces where users can access and share information on smartphone topics. This is seen as a way for Oppo to grow its customer base.

In addition, the brand will also step out of the comfort zone and start selling tablets for the first time in Europe and Japan. The company is also developing augmented reality glasses and sees the metaverse as a big business opportunity.

However, from now until everything goes into orbit, Oppo still has a lot of work to do to compete with the three smartphone giants Samsung Electronics, Apple and Xiaomi. Oppo’s global market share hovers around 10% and it’s been nearly impossible to close the gap with the three rivals over the past few quarters.

“No matter what obstacles we face, we will still try to solve them by moving forward,” said Oppo CEO Chen.

By: Nikkei Asia, Bloomberg

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Source : Genk