Oppo, the Chinese phonemaker, along with its sister company, OnePlus, have had no choice but to announce that both brands will be suspending its smartphone sales in Europe. The decision comes after both companies lost a patent lawsuit in Germany, to Nokia.
To be clear, the Nokia we’re speaking of isn’t the mobile arm of the brand, owned by the Finnish mobile brand, HMD Global, but rather the other Finnish telecoms giant, which also happens to be one of the biggest suppliers and manufacturer of said equipment to the European market.
To that end, neither Oppo nor OnePlus’ sites in Germany currently show their phones on sale, with the latter having taken down all mention of its hardware altogether. As part of the order, even accessories such as smartwatches have been delisted too.
As for the reason behind Nokia’s cease and desist order, both Oppo and OnePlus have confirmed that it is due to the Finnish giant’s demand for patent fees, which the two Chinese smartphone makers have deemed to be “unreasonably high” renewal fee requests. Sadly, neither brand is saying exactly how much those fees are, but we’ll just cap that off as trade secrets between the two brands.
The good news is that, despite the suspension of sales, customers in Germany that currently own a OnePlus or Oppo device, will be able to use their smartphones uninterrupted, as well as continue to receive regular software updates, just as before the sales suspension order kicked in.
While Oppo and OnePlus are established brands in their own right, the sister brands’ influence isn’t as far-reaching within the European market. Compared to the other brands such as Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi, Oppo alone barely accounts for 5% of the pie in the region. And as far as OnePlus is concerned, the brand’s user frequency doesn’t even come close to what its umbrella sibling has.
(Source: The Verge, Juve-Patent)
