上海
by LI Jiaqi
Oppo is developing a handheld gimbal camera after rival Vivo moved first, Jiemian News has learned, as Chinese smartphone makers look for growth beyond a weakening handset market.
The project has been approved within Oppo's Find flagship unit, while Vivo's first model has completed tooling and could launch next year. Vivo is treating the effort as a priority with more than 200 staff and has already shown internal prototypes, sources said.
The category is led by GoPro in action cameras, DJI in drones and Shenzhen-based Insta360 in panoramic models. Frost & Sullivan expects shipments to reach more than 72 million units in 2027, with sales of about 60 billion yuan (US$8.3 billion). Profit margins are high, with DJI and Insta360 earning more than 50% on new models. Vivo's internal projections suggest it could break even by selling only a few hundred thousand units, while analysts at CICC said the expanding market could boost profitability for smartphone makers with thin margins.
Insta360's June IPO valued the company at over 70 billion yuan (about US$9.9 billion), and its market cap once jumped to over 140 billion yuan — close to Oppo and Vivo, each worth about the same despite annual revenues above 200 billion yuan. Oppo had long dismissed the segment but changed course after Insta360's listing.
Global smartphone shipments fell to 288.9 million in the second quarter, with Oppo and Vivo losing market share to Apple, Samsung and Xiaomi, Canalys data show. Analysts say both firms still have an edge in imaging after investing more than 10 billion yuan (about US$1.4 billion) and assigning about 1,000 engineers to algorithms, while sharing suppliers with their phone businesses.
Oppo said its imaging team has not changed recently. Vivo had no comment.
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