Oppo throws hat in chip design ring

Chinese smartphone vendor Oppo will unveil its first self-designed chip next week as part of its broader push to beef up its research and development prowess.

The move makes Oppo the latest Chinese phone brand after Huawei Technologies Co, Xiaomi Corp and Vivo to announce its entry into the chip-designing business, thus intensifying competition among the four major Chinese smartphone vendors to a new high, experts said.

The company said its first self-designed chip will be unveiled on Tuesday at the Oppo Inno Day 2021, an innovation conference to be held in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

The chip is part of Oppo's broader push to sharpen its technological prowess. In as early as 2019, Chen Mingyong, CEO of Oppo, said the company would invest 50 billion yuan ($7.88 billion) by 2021 in R&D, with the spending focused on research in 5G, 6G, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and other emerging technologies. Also, 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, a telecom industry association, 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 next week at its innovation conference.

On top of honing its technological strength, Oppo is also stepping up its push to 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 earlier this week, comes with plenty of special visual designs. Oppo said League of Legends champion character Jinx serves as the inspiration behind the device.

Data from market research company Canalys showed that in the third quarter, Oppo ranked as the fourth-largest smartphone vendor in the world, with its smartphone shipments increasing 18 percent year-on-year during the period, which was the fastest growth rate among the top five global mobile phone brands.

The growth came amid a prolonged chip shortage that affects the global smartphone industry, which saw a 6 percent year-on-year decline in smartphone shipments in the third quarter.