According to Nikkei, Oppo is creating its own high-end chips that will be used in flagship mobile phones. According to two people speaking to Nikkei, the plan is to release custom SoCs by 2023 or 2024, depending on how fast they are developed.
Oppo, if plans are realized, would become the latest smartphone manufacturer to control its SoC design. Yesterday, Google unveiled the Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel 6 Pro smartphones with Tensor SoCs. Apple and Samsung both design their own smartphone chips. Huawei did the same before US sanctions decimated his mobile business.
Oppo uses chips from MediaTek and Qualcomm, just like other Chinese smartphone manufacturers since the crackdown against Huawei. Xiaomi released the Surge S1 SoC in 2017 for its Mi 5C budget phone, but its efforts to design chips have been restricted to secondary components such as image signal processors.
Qualcomm made it clear in a Google subtweet last Wednesday that major companies such as Oppo would not be able to design SoCs themselves, as Qualcomm did. According to IDC, Oppo is fourth in smartphone production worldwide. Given its supply chain and ownership of Vivo, Realme, and OnePlus chips, Oppo-developed chips may quickly make their way into smartphones from other brands.
