OPPO Invests $145M to Support App Developers

On December 19, Chinese smartphone maker OPPO announced that the company will allocate $145 million to support mobile application developers to advance their goal of creating an open shared mobile ecosystem.

The ecosystem will largely focus on gaming and video content in a bid to increase OPPO’s influence, especially overseas. Given the current domination of mobile internet as the preferred online browsing medium, companies like OPPO are looking to expand from simply hardware manufacturers to complimentary content creation as well. This latest announcement from OPPO comes after the company invested another $145 million one year earlier.

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Over the past year, the company has offered such resources to more than 2,000 apps with over 120,000 developers active in its platforms, according to Duan Yaohui, OPPO’s vice president. Duan also cited OPPO’s new ColorOS which has accumulated more than 320 million monthly active users in over 140 countries and regions.

OPPO’s expansion goes beyond just smartphones and will include the introduction of the company’s first smartwatch in the first quarter of next year. At OPPO’s developer conference on Thursday, Wu Henggang, vice president and president of software engineering business at OPPO said, “A new round of technological revolution is coming with 5G and artificial intelligence. With the opening of these capacities, we want to cooperate with app developers in building a world that is connected with everything and mixed with both virtual and real scenarios.”

Competition in the IoT space is set to intensify in China, especially with the increased adoption and proliferation of 5G technologies. By 2020, the country is expected to spend $300 billion annually on IoT and surpass the United States as the world’s largest IoT market, according to a report from IDC. OPPO will face stern competition in this sector from IoT leader Xiaomi, and telecom giant Huawei.