OPPO Foldable Smartphone Coming Early Next Year

OPPO isn't a new company and is, in fact, one of China's biggest smartphone makers. But it was largely unnoticed by the global market until the OPPO N1 with its rotating camera in 2013 and, more recently, the OPPO Find X with its elevating front sensors. Riding on that fresh new wave of international popularity, the company is preparing quite a few innovations in the next two years. Unsurprisingly that will all start with a folding phone that confirmed to at least debut at MWC next year.

Everyone is rumored to be doing foldable phones. That dream has existed since a few years back but it's really Samsung's formal announcement that gave other companies the green light. Naturally, OPPO doesn't want to be left in its rivals' dust.

Company product manager Chuck Wang confirmed that the company will indeed show off such a phone at MWC 2019 to be held in Barcelona near the end of February next year. That is pretty much all the exec was willing to confirm but, amusingly, he also let it slip that Sony was making a foldable phone too. That's definitely news and almost uncharacteristic of the very old-fashioned consumer electronics giant.

That's not all that OPPO has planned for the immediate future, though. Also unsurprisingly, it will be coming out with a 5G-capable smartphone within the first half of 2019. Many companies, from hardware makers to network operators, are aggressively pushing for the adoption of 5G across the globe. Expect more 5G phones to pop up next year even while 5G networks remain widely unavailable.

Lastly, OPPO will also be getting onboard with the circular hole for the front camera that both Samsung and Huawei are rumored to be racing for. Wang says OPPO doesn't see the need to rush and it won't be putting an Infinity-O style phone until 2020. Perhaps by that time, we won't eve need such holes and notches anymore.