Report: Big Chinese smartphone brand Oppo expanding to Russia

MOSCOW, Sep 5 (PRIME) -- Chinese smartphone manufacturer Oppo, the fourth world’s biggest one, is entering the Russian market, which it sees as very big and promising, business daily Vedomosti reported late on Monday on its Web site, citing the company’s oversees Managing Director Sky Li.

Several sources close to local retailers said that Oppo had already held preliminary negotiations with largest Russian sellers, including Euroset and the Russian Telephone Company, a unit of mobile giant MTS.

Director of retailer M.Video’s M_mobile project, Andrei Gubanov, said that the seller is also in talks with Oppo.

Spokesman for handset seller Svyaznoy, Sergei Tikhonov, said that the retailer is holding negotiations with Oppo and is considering an option of distributing its smartphones.

Oppo is actively searching for employees in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg, according to a list of vacancies on the recruiting portal hh.ru.

Several sources said that Oppo smartphones could appear in Russia by the end of 2017.

According to researcher IDC, Oppo supplied 27.8 million smartphones on the global market in April–June, accounting for slightly more than 8% of delivered stock and following South Korea’s Samsung with 23.3%, the U.S.’ Apple with 12%, and China’s Huawei with 11.3%.

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