Are Dodgy High Risk Chipsets Set To Be Used In Oppo & Realme Smartphones?

Oppo who is seen as a Chinese mobile phone maker whose devices some claim, could be a security risk similar to Huawei smartphones, is now moving to try and make their own chipsets as they face the real possibility of being denied access to premium US technology.

Project Bamboo Green is an initiative funded by BBK the holding Company that owns both Realme and Oppo.

Back in January when the US moved to deliver new bans on Chinese Companies over security concerns including suppliers to BBK manufacturing operations, it emerged that the Oppo linked Company was looking to poach executives from Companies such as MediaTek.

Hints of the Companies new strategy emerged back at the release of the OPPO M1 when Chinese executives confirmed that they were looking at new suppliers.

Oppo Find X2 Pro Bamboo Green as some are referring the exercise to, is facing a major uphill battle as most of the intellectual property (IP) is already owned by other Companies such as Qualcomm who are banned from supplying hardware to Huawei and other Chinese Companies.

A recent report claims the BBK subsidiary is poaching MediaTek and UNISOC engineers in its bid to build out their dream.

Jeffery Ju, MediaTek’s former co-chief operating officer is reported to have been hired.

ChannelNews has been told that OPPO is also looking to hire another top executive from MediaTek’s 5G smartphone chip development operation shortly.

Some claim that BBK is splashing the cash in an effort to get executives from Qualcomm and Huawei’s HiSilicon operation over to their Bamboo Green operation.

Chinese Media claim that OPPO’s effort to commence chip manufacture is not unrelated to Huawei’s predicament even though the company believes owning the chip design capability will give it more control over its supply chain.

Observers claim that the exercise is “futile”. “By the time, this operation is off the ground suppliers such as Qualcomm will be light years ahead of BBK and Oppo. It could work in the Chinese market where consumers have no say in security around their mobile devices with the Communist Government able to get easy access to smartphone information.”

“In markets like Australia and the USA consumers want brands they can trust and contain known components”.

Last year Xiaomi made a similar effort with the Surge S1 but since being announced nothing has been heard about the self-developed chip.