China’s Oppo launches financial platform for loans, mutual funds in India

China-based smartphone maker Oppo has ventured into financial services in India with the launch of Oppo Kash. The platform provides personal finance products such as insurance, loans, UPI payment services and mutual fund investment options.

“Our aim is to have 10 million consumers in the next five years on the platform, having used either of our financial services worth Rs 50,000 crore,”  Sumit Walia, vice president of product and marketing at the BBK Electronics-owned company, said.

Oppo Kash will be pre-installed in the company's smartphones, in addition to being available for download on Google Playstore.

“The platform aims to have six offerings in the next 18 months – payments, lending, savings, insurance, financial education and for the first time in India, a financial well-being score,” a statement said.

The company has launched five products in the beta release, including Freedom SIP, through which users can invest in mutual funds with just Rs 100. It also provides free credit reports, personal loans upto Rs 2 lakh, business loans upto Rs 2 crore and screen insurance. 

Oppo is also piloting a phygital acquisition model, using its network of smartphone sales team to cross-sell the financial products. The pilot will run in a few stores in some tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3 cities for six months, after which it will roll out pan-India, the statement said.

Founded in 2001, the Shenzhen, Guangdong-based company has a presence in 40 countries and regions, with over 4,00,000 sales outlets worldwide. With 40,000 employees, it has nine manufacturing centres, six research divisions, four research and development (R&D) centres and a London-based global design centre.

The company’s first R&D centre outside China, a unit that develops 5G technologies, is in Hyderabad. In the Indian smartphone market, Oppo had a share of 11.8% in the third quarter of 2019, as per market research firm IDC.

Chinese players such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, as well as Korea’s Samsung, have grown rapidly in the India’s smartphone market with their budget-friendly and feature-laden phones.

To reclaim its place as a top mobile vendor in India, Noida-based smartphone maker Lava International said last week that it would raise $90 million over the next three years from private equity firm GEM Global Yield Fund.