OPPO Unveils AI Roadmap with Focus on India as Key Market

OPPO's AI roadmap includes 50 million GenAI phones by year-end, and India as a key market

OPPO considers India as a significant market in its AI ambitions. OPPO aims to be a leading player in this next platform shift driven by AI. OPPO's head of product strategy, Peter Dohyung Lee has shared a roadmap of how the brand plans to integrate AI into its various products. A key action would be to incorporate generative AI (GenAI) features into its phones. Here's what OPPO is planning with AI. In an interview given to Mint, Mr. Lee said over time the company wants all of its phones to have GenAI features. The initial target is to equip 50 million OPPO devices with GenAI by the end of this year. One of the applications of GenAI would be in the camera and photography department. Mr. Lee says OPPO will "continue to integrate AI in enhancing the imaging experience". He also underlined the adoption of the AI Recording Summary feature. More on that later. These are just two of the 100+ functionalities the company is planning to release this year. While on the one hand, OPPO aims to democratise AI phone experiences, it is also investing heavily in its AI centre for research and generating innovative concepts like in-house language models (since 2020), large vision models and multimodal technology. The company has over 5,000 artificial intelligence patents. Besides adding features, OPPO AI phones will also be equipped with strong data privacy and security measures. India is the second-largest market of smartphones in the world and OPPO is the fourth-largest player in terms of sales volume. Also, the Indians (especially the vibrant youth) are very welcoming of new mobile technologies. OPPO understands this and sees India as a major market for its AI plans. Mr Lee shares the adoption of the AI Recording Summary feature in its Reno 12 series as an example. This feature gives you a summary of call recordings in an easy-to-read format. You can save them somewhere or share them with anyone. The company will be adding more Indian languages to this feature. It also looks forward to working with Indian AI creators and startups to possibly ideate, develop, assess, and promote new OPPO AI phones and features.

Oppo eyes on-device AI in entry level smartphones; says focus on India-specific demand

Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is looking to expand its on-device artificial intelligence (AI) features to entry-level smartphones. The company is in discussions with chip makers such as MediaTek and Qualcomm to minimise the costs and system resources to bring AI in lower-end smartphones for better user experience, Oppo head of product strategy Peter Dohyung Lee said in a media interaction on Friday. The same assumes significance as smartphone companies have been looking at driving sales through better user experience and product quality. Among major trends, the companies have been banking on AI features in multimedia, for daily productivity improvement, and with generative AI capabilities, in smartphones. "India is going to be one of the largest consumers of AI. We want to make sure that everybody has access to it irrespective of the price points," Lee said. The company is targeting to sell 50 million smartphones globally with generative AI features by the end of 2024. For the India market, Oppo has localised AI for photography based on feedback from prominent photographers such as related to skin tones, based on the usage patterns, and cultures practised in the country. The company implements the change in AI capabilities based on feedback from its India team and users. Based on that, it has also improved battery features to meet the requirements of Indian users, Lee said. According to Counterpoint Research, Oppo's market share in India fell to 10% in the January-March quarter from 12% in the year-ago period. On Friday, Oppo launched Reno12 Pro 5G and the Reno12 5G smartphone models with highest AI stack features for photography, productivity and efficiency. Oppo has priced Reno 12 at Rs 32,999 with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. Reno12 Pro 5G with 12GB RAM and 256 GB storage will be sold for Rs 36,999, and the model with 512 GB storage will sell for 40,999. "In India, we have maintained a steady double-digit growth on a year-on-year basis in Reno sales since 2021. With the new series, we are expecting a similar growth trend in Reno sales this year as well," Lee said. Over the past decade, Oppo has filed over 5,600 patents globally related to AI inventions. The company did not share details about patents that came from India. Notably, Oppo India licences brand and technology from Oppo global team. Oppo has an R&D center in India in the name of OPlus and that is a shared unit with OnePlus. The company has collaborated with partners such as Google and Microsoft, to leverage AI technology in smartphones. It said, next -gen Reno Series and the Flagship series will feature the Google Gemini family large language models (LLMs). "Within this year, Oppo users will be able to use DESKTOP Copilot (from Microsoft) to generate content, translate text messages, and search addresses on their smartphones via a connected PC," Lee said. When asked about the data usage to train AI models, Lee said, "Oppo has taken a pledge that it will never use its user data to build its own AI." The company said it follows the country's regulations with regard to data protection and is ensuring durability and security in its smartphones. Share of generative AI in overall smartphone shipments will reach 11% by 2024 and 43% by 2027, with over 550 million units in 2027, according to Counterpoint.