It appears that the ongoing dispute between Nokia, Oppo, and OnePlus is intensifying as the two companies owned by BBK Electronics have reportedly decided to remove their smartphones from certain European markets. According to a reliable source, Max Jambor, these markets include Germany, the U.K., France, and the Netherlands.
Oppo and OnePlus have been struggling in Europe for some time now. The two companies have locked horns with Nokia over a patent dispute that effectively stopped them from advertising their products in Germany.
The two Chinese smartphone companies had to stop their sales in Germany after losing a patent lawsuit with Nokia. According to a report from European patent news siteJuve Patent, the latter accused OnePlus and Oppo of using its patented technology for processing 4G and 5G signals without paying the license fee.
Nokia, a Finnish tech company, owns many patents for 5G technology. This is causing trouble for some Chinese smartphone makers like Oppo and OnePlus. A German court in July last year ruled that Oppo and OnePlus were using Nokia’s 5G technology without a valid license. The court told them to agree on a fair price to use the technology, or face a ban on selling their smartphones. When they couldn’t agree, the court banned Oppo from selling its smartphones.
According to a statement given by OnePlus’ director of communications Spenser Blank to The Verge, Nokia demanded an “unreasonably high fee” for patents. He further confirmed that the sales of OnePlus phones in Germany have been stopped. However, the continue will continue with its operations there. This is the reason why Oppo launched the Find X6 series only in China.
Despite being big names in the technology sector, Oppo and OnePlus have comparatively had weaker smartphone shipments in the European market in Q22022. A dataset from Counterpoint research shows that Oppo recorded a smartphone shipment of just 5% of the European market and OnePlus even less than that.