Chinese smartphone maker in India Oppo cancelled its live smartphone launch event on Wednesday, 17 June, as the recent clash between India and China has renewed calls from local traders and many Indian citizens to ban Chinese products in India, as per a Financial Post report.
Oppo, which has a manufacturing plant in Greater Noida, had earlier announced that it will be launching its latest flagship in India – the Oppo Find X2 – via a live online event.
A YouTube Live link of the event, which was supposed to go live at 4:00 pm IST on 17 June, was not available for viewing and the company had to upload a 20-minute pre-recorded video of the event instead, the report claims.
The Quint reached out to Oppo for an official statement on the matter and the company declined to comment.
However, a source close to the company said that the event could not go live “due to a technical glitch.”
The Financial Post report suggests that Oppo cancelled the event as it wanted to avoid any possible uproar on social media.
‘No Impact on Sales’
Many Chinese smartphone companies like Xiaomi, OnePlus, Vivo have heavy investment projects in India.
The fact that Chinese smartphone brands account for 80 percent of the Indian smartphone market is a testament to how Indians love a bargain.
Despite the anti-China sentiment and hashtags like #BoycottChineseProducts trending on social media, in actuality, it hasn’t had a palpable effect on the sales.
As per an Economic Times report, business heads of Chinese products in India have said that business is as usual and there hasn’t been an impact on the sale of goods.
India’s number one smartphone brand Xiaomi sold out laptops it launched in India on 17 June on its platform Mi.com.
Another Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus is scheduled to make the sale of its smartphone the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro live in India on 18 June.
The Possible Effect in Near Future
The current scenario is not a good sign for Chinese tech giants who have big investment plans in India. Companies like Alibaba, ByteDance, Great Wall and SAIC already have a lot riding on India.
As per the Financial Post report, the Confederation of All India Traders, a group that represent almost 70 million brick-and-mortar retailers, said its members will boycott imported Chinese goods despite suffering losses in business.
A Twitter user, Uzair Hasan Rizvi, posted a video on his account showing a man throwing a Chinese brand TV out of his 2nd-floor balcony only to be thrashed further by more people standing below.
This video portrays the anti-China sentiment that’s going around in some parts of the country due to the recent clash at the Indo-Chinese border.
There are also reports that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has decided to terminate the involvement of Chinese equipment in the upgradation of the 4G equipment of the state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).
Clearly, the way ahead is not a pretty picture for Chinese brands doing business in India. If tensions escalate, we might see more brands as targets of social media uproar in the coming days and current Chinese businesses might suffer.
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