Oppo Working on Plans to Set Up Manufacturing Unit in Greater Noida?

Betting big on the booming Indian smartphone market, Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is planning an industrial park in Greater Noida which will house a manufacturing unit.

“We already have a production unit in India and the SMT (surface-mount technology) centre is now undergoing the furnishment…it will be finished in February. Also, with regard to the industrial park, we will have the agreement signing press conference at the end of next month,” Sky Li, vice president of Oppo and managing director of international mobile business and President of Oppo India.

He said the industrial park is spread over 1,000 acres and entails investment of about 1.5 billion RMB (Renminbi) yuan or about USD 216 million. Oppo already has manufacturing operations in Noida.

Exuding confidence on the company’s positioning in the Indian market on the strength of products like Selfie Expert smartphones, Li said Oppo will focus on user experience for gaining market share.

“Unlike many other companies we do not pursue high volume of shipments or scale of our enterprise…but we focus on creating strong products for users…We are creating a trend for the industry and many are following our footsteps on the selfie functionality. Our positioning (in the market) is correct and precise, and that is giving credit to our market research,” Li said.

India has overtaken the US in 2016 to become the world’s second-largest smartphone market with an installed base of 275 million devices, according to global industry body GSMA. GSMA has predicted that India — which is currently also the second-largest mobile market globally — will have nearly one billion mobile subscribers by 2020, from 616 million unique users in June 2016.

GSMA forecasts that improving affordability, falling device prices and operator investments in network coverage and quality would help deliver an additional 330 million unique subscribers in India by 2020, lifting the country s penetration rate to 68 per cent of the population (up from 47 percent in 2015). Given the ongoing technology shift to mobile broadband services, the number of 3G/4G mobile broadband connections is forecast to reach more than 670 million by 2020.