This news comes after fellow competitors such as Huawei and Xiaomi have stepped into the auto industry.
On April 28, Chinese media channel 36kr reported that Chinese mobile phone manufacturer OPPO is setting its eyes on the auto market.
Upon being asked, the firm said it would not respond to any relevant rumors for now. However, according to the company's insiders, there are indeed teams working on the idea but nothing has been approved by the board yet.
The source revealed that, just two weeks ago, the founder of OPPO, Chen Mingyong conducted a serious meeting with Zhu Wei, President of CATL. Chen also led his team to visit auto industry institutions, including China Automotive Research Group.
The news is not that surprising; OPPO started its business deployment plan for intelligent automobiles last year. In December 2020, the firm obtained two patents closely related to the automobile industry. Also, in 1Q 2021, OPPO participated in the SOA framework project of Lingshu, the subsidiary company of Chinese Auto veteran SAIC Motor, wishing to export its camera equipped with anti-shake technology for taking photos and for face recognition in the cockpit.
With the rise of the EV industry in China every tech firm wants to play some kind of role in it, be it by manufacturing cars or car parts – or providing software. We believe OPPO, being a tech firm specializing in producing mobile phones, will use its expertise to team up with other EV firms by providing them software.