Chinese smartphone brand Oppo, whose distributor in Australia is bleeding losses and is highly leveraged in debt, has shocked the market with their exit from several key markets around the world.

Overnight it as been revealed that Oppo is pulling out of the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France, with Sweden and Finland tipped to follow.

They have not said whether they will continue to supply OMC Electronics, whose sales of Oppo smartphones slumped in Australia last year by more than 22 per cent.

Oppo has been struggling for a while. Last year the business faced major problems in the Indian market because they are seen as a high-risk Chinese brand. Authorities also seized Oppo smartphones due to tax evasion issues.

The news about their exit from Europe was leaked by Chinese social media sites.

Their exit has not surprised analysts, after Oppo was accused of stealing Nokia patents.

Last year the UK High Court ruled that Oppo had deliberately infringed one of Nokia’s valid implementation patents relating to the processing of transmissions signals in a radio transmitter.

Oppo tried to appeal, but the UK Supreme Court rejected Oppo’s application resulting in Nokia taking action in other European Countries.
This resulted in Oppo smartphones being stripped from retailers shelves across multiple Countries.

Chinese media claim, “It remains to be seen what the future holds for Oppo and fellow BBK-group companies in Europe.”

At this stage it’s not known whether Nokia intends to take action in Australia, with one source claiming “Its probable”.

Their Australian distributor, OMC Electronics Pty Ltd, declared $8.2M in losses last year and another linked business that also sells smartphones a $10.2M loss, with questions being raised as to whether they have a future in Australia.

OMC Electronics has over overall $98M in liabilities, with questions being raised by auditors as to whether they can continue as a ‘Going Concern’.