Chinese smartphone company, Oppo, announced that it sold 50 million phone units in 2015, allowing it to land the eight spot of the top ten smartphone manufacturers in the world according to data from TrendForce, a market intelligence provider on tech industries.
Not many are familiar with Oppo, at least outside China, which makes it even more impressive that it was able to reach a sales record that is 67 percent higher than its previous years. A new flagship phone was not even necessary for the company, and 15 million of the units sold were from its R7 series - R7, R7S and R7 Plus, according to International Business Times.
While this is an impressive company performance, it is still far from challenging smartphone giants like Apple and Samsung, both of which rake Oppo's sales in a quarterly basis, rather than in a year, according to Digital Trends.
Still, it is worth noting that according to TrendForce's data, rising smartphone companies are now majorly from China - seven out of 10, with only Apple, Samsung and LG as the non-Chinese brands, according to a press release from TrendForce.
With so little ways to differentiate smartphones, especially those using the Android platform, the key to stepping up from competition is now dependent on price and brand, according to Tech Crunch.
