The Indian smartphone market has long felt threatened by the popularity of Chinese smartphone brands among Indian users, and to kick things up a notch, Oppo is all set to launch a new sub-brand and an Amazon-exclusive smartphone in India. Oppo shall announce both its upcoming launches officially tomorrow.
Oppo, along with Vivo, has hitherto been offline-focused brands. But following in the footsteps of the latest collaboration between Asus and Flipkart, to sell Asus smartphones on the online store. Amazon has partnered with Oppo. The Chinese firm shall launch its upcoming flagship under its new Oppo sub-brand. Contrary to the BBK-owned bestselling online premium smartphone brand One-Plus, Oppo aims to target budget segment users.
With Xiaomi making its presence felt, having been the largest smartphone brand online in India for three straight quarters, and now rapidly expanding its offline market, Oppo’s latest move appears to be an attempt to throw some competition Xiaomi’s way. To add to the conjecture is that Oppo, like Xiaomi, may also start assembling their smartphones locally in India.
The online partnership may also be inspired by the fact that both Vivo and Oppo has lost a number of partnerships with retail chains and seen a huge surge in the sale of smartphones online. While no details have yet been revealed about either the new Oppo sub-brand or the new smartphone, more information is expected to arrive soon.