OPPO is investing $1.6 billion in research and development this year, the company announced at its 2019 innovation event here in Barcelona, Spain. So you know it means business. After all, a good indicator that one is in it for the long haul is when it invests heavily in the future.

And for OPPO, the future of the smartphone industry is 5G. In fact, it has prepared for the arrival of the next-generation network since 2015. That preparation has led us to today, when OPPO officially announced its first 5G smartphone.

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Anyi Jiang, the manufacturer’s vice president, briefly previewed the device onstage to journalists invited to the event.

The smartphone — which may or may not be called Find X2 or Find Z — is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 chipset with X50 5G modem, integrated radio-frequency transceiver, and RF front-end solutions.

And while it’s expected to be rolled out to Europe in the second quarter of this year, the company is not sure yet about the unit’s launch in the Philippines. According to OPPO, it will all depend on the outcome of its discussion with local operators Smart Communications and Globe Telecom. The state of the local network and infrastructure will have to be considered as well.

The arrival of OPPO’s first 5G smartphone in the Philippines will depend on the outcome of its discussion with telcos Smart and Globe. The state of the local network and infrastructure will have to be considered as well.

To stay ahead of the 5G trend, Jiang said they are adopting four strategies, one of them is the extensive research investment we talked about earlier. A powerful R&D support and forward-thinking partnership and intellectual collaboration — as evidenced by its cooperation with carriers Swisscom, Telstra, Optus, and Singtel — are in the cards as well.

It will take some time to transition from 4G to 5G, OPPO said, but it is excited about what the network brings and how it is set to revolutionize lives through 4K and 8K video download and upload; cloud-play; 3D video calling; 5G cloud gaming; and augmented-reality shopping, among others.

It believes in 5G so much so that it has established a business unit for intelligent mobile devices other than smartphones in January.

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