Chinese smartphone brand Oppo, has thrown in the towel, in the future development of components for their own range of smartphones, which consumers have shunned in Australia, in favour of Android brands from Google, Samsung, Motorola and Nokia.

Oppo smartphones are distributed in Australia by the loss making OPC Holdings who last reported a 23% decline in sales, now Oppo is set to shut down its semiconductor division and cease development of its own processors weeks afte the brands products werer recently dumped by several European retailers after the Chinese business was accused of using Nokia technology, without paying a patent fee, is blaming the slowdown in demand for other Chinese companies’ products.

The business said on Friday night that they are set to “cease the operation” of ZEKU, the company’s flagship chip development unit and drop the development of its own technology.

The move is set to create problems for Oppo who also own the Realme brand that OPC Holdings failed to get off the ground in Australia.

The closure will also result in total redesigning of several Oppo models as they try to access US technology to replace their own components.

Among the components missing from future models will be their signature Marisilicon series, including its AI-enabled image signal processor (ISP) and its Bluetooth chipset, as well as an upcoming smartphone processor that was remarkably similar to a processor manufactured by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing that is used in Apple’s iPhone.

“Due to the uncertainties in the global economy and the smartphone industry, we have to make difficult adjustments for long-term development,” Oppo told Nikkei Asia in a statement on Friday.

One of the big issues for Oppo is cash burn and slowing sales with the development of house brand processors requiring hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and a commitment for the long term.

And that means shipping millions of units every year, chip industry executives told Nikkei Asia.

Currently, only deep-pocketed players Apple and Samsung develop their own mobile chips and the massive slump in demand for Oppo products is having an impact on the development of new smartphones.

Huawei Technologies had a competitive chip unit, HiSilicon, that designed all of its core chips for smartphone and telecom equipment before a crackdown by the US government, restricted its access to cutting-edge chip production technologies resulting in the Chinese business that was banned in Australia pulling out of selling smartphones in markets such as Australia, the USA and the UK.

Oppo’s President of Overseas Sales and Services Billy Zhang has admitted that the business is struggling and see uncertainties ahead.