According to reports in the Chinese press, Oppo is planning to scale back its European business operations in Germany and the UK. The company will retain a small workforce to handle basic operations in these two countries. Meanwhile, its business in countries such as Italy, Finland, Spain, and France will continue to progress. Oppo sees the European market requiring long-term investment, being a slow return on investment, and expensive to maintain.
Oppo also has legal problems in Europe. Nokia and Oppo have been in a patent dispute for 20 months. In mid-2022, a court in Mannheim, Germany, ruled that Oppo infringed on Nokia’s patents and granted Nokia an injunction against Oppo, leading to a ban on sales of Oppo and Oneplus devices in Germany. In early August, a court in Munich ruled that Oppo infringed on two of Nokia’s technology patents. In January, Oppo brought three additional patent assertions against Nokia, which involve patents from Huawei that were exclusively licensed to Oppo. The Mannheim Regional Court in Germany confirmed that Oppo has amended a complaint to assert one of these patents, while the other two are being asserted in Munich. Nokia has criticized Oppo for using another company’s patents in the dispute and stated that it significantly undermines Oppo’s arguments on the strength of its own 5G patent portfolio.
In December, Huawei signed a patent cross-license agreement with both Oppo and Nokia, but there is an indication that Nokia wants more from Oppo than under the previous license agreement. Nokia made an arbitration proposal in India, but the court noted that Oppo is going to decline. In November, the Indian court denied a Nokia motion to force Oppo to make interim payments. The dispute is ongoing with a Chinese court in Chongqing expected to make a FRAND determination soon. FRAND stands for Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory. It is a type of licensing agreement often used for standards-essential patents, which are patents that are essential to implement a particular technology standard.
