Oppo in Talks With Foxconn to Start Smartphone Manufacturing in India

Chinese handset-maker Oppo on Wednesday said it was in talks with electronics assembly manufacturer Foxconn to start an assembly line for its smartphones in the Sri City plant special economic zone in Andhra Pradesh.

"We are right now in talks with Foxconn to start an assembly line at the Sri City plant though we are undecided on the models and production capability of the line right now," Mike Wang, the newly-appointed India chief executive of Oppo, told IANS.

He also said that the company was happy with the sales volume that Oppo had achieved during the first eight months of the ongoing calendar year.

"We have sold around 400,000 devices in India and are targeting 1 million units by the end of this calendar year and 1.5 million units by the end of this fiscal year. India is a huge and diverse market for us which is full of opportunities," Wang said.

Oppo claims that it is the second largest smartphone player in China in terms of sales volume.

"Our new R series of smartphones which was launched globally in July propelled us to the second position in China and that is also one of the reasons to bring the R series to India which we are launching today (Wednesday)."

The Chinese handset-maker has three series of smartphones - Find, N, and R.

"The Find series caters to people who love performance and design at the same time. The N-series caters to the camera lovers and the phones come with a rotating camera as well. The R series is more focused on design," a top official from Oppo said.

Oppo, which entered the India market last year, failed to achieve big numbers although the start of its business had shown promise.

When asked about the strategies it would adopt to grow its business in India, Wang said: "Oppo was happy with the current numbers in a market like India which is so diverse. Our research and development team is working on products more suited to India."

"We are not looking at the numbers game but towards a more sustainable way of doing business in the market. We have 1,000 engineers on our research and development team and 50 percent of this workforce is working to understand and deliver the needs of Indian consumers."

Oppo also launched two new smartphones on Wednesday - the R7 Plus and the R7 Lite - priced at Rs .29,990 and Rs. 17,990 respectively.