Similar to Oppo, Vivo also launched a sub-brand called iQOO last year in China. The same sub-brand of Vivo is expected to make launch smartphones in the Indian market in March. With smartphone companies aggressively coming with sub-brands, iQOO will be Vivo's take on the same. However, iQOO will operate as a separate entity in India, similar to how it is operating in China right now. So far, iQOO has launched five smartphones in the Chinese market and two more models are currently in the works, according to rumours on the web. iQOO will most likely act as an online brand of Vivo as the Chinese company is expected to shrink down the focus on the online market this year. iQOO will also take on the likes of Xiaomi's Poco and Redmi, Oppo's Realme and OnePlus as well. Having said that, Vivo is yet to confirm this development, so take this news with a pinch of salt.
iQOO May Focus on Vivo's Online Market
At the end of 2019, a report from 91mobiles revealed that Vivo might not launch anymore online exclusive models in 2020 as the company wants to focus on the offline market. Vivo launched some decent online-only models in 2019 like the Vivo Z1 Pro, Vivo U10 and Vivo U20, but the Chinese brand may not continue the same this year. So what about Vivo's online market then? Well, it could be taken care of by iQOO, the sub-brand of Vivo in China.
Another 91mobiles report from today says iQOO will debut in India this March. That said, iQOO could be Vivo's answer to Realme and Xiaomi's Poco brands. The report also added the brand would be a standalone one in the sub-continent.
Last week, Xiaomi made Poco an independent brand in India, so we could see more online-only phones from Poco coming in the future. Realme is an independent brand in India with a separate market share from Oppo. In the future, it will be interesting to see whether iQOO and Poco can enter the top five brands in India. Xiaomi's BlackShark is also an independent company right now in India.
Vivo iQOO Launched 5 Smartphones Till Date
Vivo's iQOO brand has launched five smartphones till date- Vivo iQOO, Vivo iQOO Neo, Vivo iQOO Pro, Vivo iQOO Pro 5G and Vivo iQOO Neo 855. All the five phones are powered by either Qualcomm's high-end Snapdragon 855 or Snapdragon 845 chipsets, so it is safe to say the iQOO brand from Vivo will launch high-end models. The company even brought a 5G smartphone to China last year.
In the latest news, iQOO will be launching new models in the coming days and they could be named as Vivo iQOO Neo 3 and iQOO Neo 3 Pro. The iQOO Neo 3 series may even have a 5G smartphone. That being said, iQOO could make its India debut with these phones only in March. The iQOO Neo 3 name was confirmed by IMEI database just a couple of days ago. In China, all the iQOO models are considered as gaming phones, so it will be interesting to see if Vivo takes on Asus ROG models or not in the Indian market.
For now, we don't have any official confirmation from Vivo on whether it's bringing iQOO to the Indian market. We will update this space once the company announces anything regarding the same.
