Oppo plans comeback in Europe after smartphone maker settles its patent disputes with Nokia

• Oppo says to bring its 5G-capable Reno 11 F handset to European market in coming days
• Oppo’s move comes a month after it signed a global patent cross-licensing agreement with Nokia, covering standard-essential patents in 5G

Oppo is planning a concerted comeback in the European market with the Chinese smartphone maker looking to grow further in the region, a month after clearing up legal disputes with Finnish electronics giant Nokia.

“Europe has been key to Oppo, and Oppo products will once again be widely available across Europe,” Bingo Liu, chief executive of Oppo Europe, said on the sidelines of an event on Monday at MWC Barcelona.

Oppo will bring its 5G-capable Reno 11 F, a handset launched in China and other parts of the world earlier this month, to Europe in the coming days, followed by the return of its flagship Find series to the market this year, said Liu. Tablet and earphone products are also planned for the market in 2024 to strengthen a complete ecosystem, Liu said.

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Oppo’s announcement comes a month after the company and Nokia signed a global patent cross-licensing agreement, covering standard-essential patents in 5G and other cellular communication technologies.

The Chinese smartphone maker’s growth in Europe has been slowed by the protracted legal disputes with Nokia. After losing a patent infringement lawsuit to Nokia in Germany in 2022, Oppo halted smartphone sales there and delisted most products from its local website.

Liu did not specifically mention Germany or the timeline for resuming sales in the country. A check of the company’s local website by the Post on Tuesday showed that no products are currently available.

On Monday, Oppo also announced a three-year strategic alliance with Spanish telecommunications operator TelefOnica to strengthen its presence in the European market.

Oppo also showcased its latest artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to the European market at MWC Barcelona, unveiling a prototype of the Oppo Air Glass 3, a pair of augmented reality glasses that can access its self-developed large language model AndesGPT via a smartphone.

Oppo will face off against Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi and Honor in Europe, and market leaders Apple and Samsung Electronics, which accounted for 30 per cent and 29 per cent of smartphone shipments respectively in the fourth quarter last year, according to Counterpoint data.

Xiaomi ranked third with 18 per cent of the market, followed by Realme and Honor with 3 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively.

Oppo, the world’s fourth-largest smartphone maker in 2023, fell out of the top five in Europe following its patent disputes in the third quarter last year and saw a 59 per cent decline in shipments volume in the fourth quarter.

The 5G deal with Nokia should spark a recovery in the coming quarters, but Oppo has lost a lot of ground to the likes of Honor and Google, according to the Counterpoint report.

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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.

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