On October 12, market research firm Counterpoint released its global smartphone report for the third quarter of 2026, delivering a challenging performance review for OPPO.

Including OnePlus and realme, OPPO's global shipments fell by over 20% year-on-year, with its market share dropping to 9%. During the same period, global smartphone shipments fell by 20% overall, marking the lowest third-quarter level since 2012. Samsung's shipments declined by just 3%, with its share rising to 23%; Apple also saw a decline but its share increased to 22%. While the industry faced widespread pressure, the impact varied across manufacturers.

The following day, IDC released its China market results, further highlighting the pressure OPPO faces domestically. In the third quarter, China's smartphone shipments totaled 57.9 million units, down 15.4% year-on-year, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of decline. OPPO maintained third place with around a 15.5% share, but its shipments fell by 17.6% year-on-year. Meanwhile, Huawei saw a 17.3% increase, while Apple's decline was limited to 4.3%. Globally and domestically, OPPO failed to sustain its shipment volumes from the previous year.

Attributing this decline solely to operational missteps would be unfair. The expansion of AI data centers has driven up demand for memory chips, increasing procurement costs for smartphone manufacturers, while consumers are extending their device replacement cycles. Counterpoint also noted that OPPO is consolidating its three brands and reducing low-margin products, shifting supply toward higher-return markets. Thus, the changes in shipment volumes also reflect a degree of strategic choice.

In tandem with its scale contraction, OPPO continues to invest in premium products and system capabilities. In September, the Find X10 series was launched; in early October, rumors emerged about OPPO's foldable and large-screen devices, though not officially confirmed, reflecting external interest in its new product layout (product layout).

On October 13, OPPO announced a partnership with AI agent platform Manus, integrating its multi-step task execution capabilities into AI Mind Pilot, with plans to debut on the Find X10 series running ColorOS 17. That same evening, JieYueXingChen launched the STEPX Neo, an AI agent smartphone priced at 3,999 yuan. One approach introduces external agents into the system, while the other attempts to redesign smartphones from models to operating systems. Previously, the second-generation AI agent smartphone from Doubao and Nubia had also entered the market.

After its shipment scale contracted, OPPO needs to rely on more expensive products to generate higher revenue. AI is reshaping how consumers evaluate premium smartphones and redistributing profits between smartphone manufacturers and internet platforms.

For OPPO, which has long built advantages through hardware, distribution channels, and product refresh cycles, the latter challenge clearly warrants more attention than single-quarter sales fluctuations.

According to IDC, the domestic market declined by 15.4% in the third quarter, while OPPO fell by 17.6%—a mere 2.2 percentage point difference. This gap is insufficient to declare a manufacturer as falling behind, especially since quarterly shipments are influenced by channel inventory, adjustments, and new product launches. However, compared to Huawei's 17.3% growth during the same period, the differing resilience among brands becomes evident amid shrinking demand.

Consumers haven't stopped buying smartphones altogether; their purchases are simply concentrated on products they deem worth upgrading to.

Rising memory costs disproportionately impact mid-to-low-end products: a smartphone priced around 2,000 yuan could exceed budgets with a few hundred yuan in price hikes, while maintaining prices would rapidly erode per-unit profits. Sustaining channel supply for multiple models also incurs costs for material procurement, inventory turnover, and after-sales parts.

Thus, Counterpoint explicitly noted in its global report that OPPO is reducing business overlap among its brands and shifting supply resources toward products and markets with relatively better gross margins. For an asset-heavy, long-supply-chain industry like smartphones, proactively reducing channel inventory and controlling low-margin models can sometimes be more reasonable than barely maintain (barely maintaining) market share.

Of course, OPPO's premium push has achieved partial success. Counterpoint reported that in the first half of 2026, OPPO's global wholesale shipments of smartphones priced at $600 or above grew by 69% year-on-year, among the fastest rates among major brands. The Find X9 series was a key driver, with new models launched in April further boosting sales. This indicates that OPPO's long-term investments in imaging, design, and premium R&D are gaining recognition from more consumers.

However, from an operational standpoint, rapid growth in premium sales has not yet offset the scale pressures facing OPPO's overall smartphone business. Counterpoint previously estimated that in the second quarter, the average selling price of OPPO's smartphones rose by 9% year-on-year, but revenue fell by 10%. In the third quarter, global shipments declined by over 20%. Higher average selling prices could stem from either growth in higher-priced models or reduced shipments of low-priced devices, making it unreliable to judge overall pricing power based solely on this metric.

Since OPPO has not disclosed profit figures for its smartphone business that align with these third-party data points, it remains unclear whether it has achieved better profitability with fewer sales.

Compared to opaque profitability changes, the pressure on distribution channels is more tangible. OPPO's scale advantage over the past decade has largely relied on its offline retail network. Whether through its early R series or later Reno series, its vast user base in mainstream price segments provided stable foot traffic to stores, amortizing operational costs for sales, services, and after-sales networks.

The value of this system cannot be measured solely by per-unit gross margins. A smartphone priced at 2,000–3,000 yuan may generate lower profits than a premium flagship, but its buyers might remain within OPPO's ecosystem for years, even upgrading to a Find series device. A single in-store purchase also serves as the starting point for future device upgrades, after-sales services, and accessory sales.

Low-margin users are not necessarily low-value users. While OPPO can reduce unprofitable models, it struggles to derive sustained revenue from users it loses.

Online brands can adjust their product mix more swiftly, with flexible channel costs. In contrast, manufacturers reliant on offline networks require consistent terminal sales to support retail partners. When volume-driven products decline and inventory turnover slows, fixed store costs do not disappear proportionally.

OPPO's integration of OnePlus and realme this year clearly aims to improve efficiency.

However, the reality is that OnePlus and Find are now entering similar premium price segments. The newly released OnePlus 16, priced starting at 5,999 yuan (or 5,699 yuan with launch discounts), closely approaches the Find X10 standard edition's starting price of 5,499 yuan. While OnePlus leans toward performance and Find toward imaging, their budgets now overlap significantly.

After the OnePlus 16's launch, OPPO announced that first-hour sales exceeded 70,000 units, indicating a loyal user base willing to pay for performance. However, single-brand launch figures do not reveal how much new customer acquisition the group achieved. If some growth came from users who might have otherwise purchased a Find device, the internal reallocation of sales would diminish contributions to the group's overall scale.

OPPO historically gained scale advantages by expanding its smartphone user base but now seeks higher per-unit value. Meanwhile, competition in next-generation smartphones is shifting toward operating systems and AI agents. Rather than launching another flagship model, the more impactful long-term challenge is ensuring users choose OPPO for their next upgrade.

When releasing ColorOS 17 in September, OPPO positioned it as a major upgrade for the AIOS era. The company revealed that ColorOS has over 770 million global active users across 90+ countries and regions. The system incorporates on-device models, long-term memory, and an AI agent ecosystem framework, enabling Xiao Bu (OPPO's AI assistant) to organize schedules, recognize important information, and integrate third-party services.

For example, users can access 200 Alipay services via Xiao Bu, which collaborates with 40+ top third-party providers across 700+ scenarios. OPPO also disclosed that its "AI One-Click Flash Note" feature for order codes has been used over 1 billion times.

QuestMobile reported that as of June this year, Xiao Bu had approximately 165 million monthly active users, ranking among the top AI assistants among smartphone manufacturers. With such a large user base for its system and assistant, OPPO should have a significant advantage in developing personal AI agents. However, transitioning from daily information recognition and service integration to complex cross-app task execution requires more than just user scale.

Despite its vast AI user base, OPPO still needs external agents to fill gaps in complex task execution.

Previously, in "New Position's" article "Flood Dividends vs. Droplet AI: A Detailed Analysis of OPPO's Ostrich-Style Survival Strategy," a source close to OPPO revealed that Liu Zuohu once approached Zhang Peng, founder of GeekPark, to recommend AI talent, leading to the introduction of Jiang Yuchen, now OPPO's ColorOS AI Product R&D Director.

In July this year, Jiang told Jiemian News that smartphone operating systems have always served as "aggregation and distribution" platforms. In the future, they will route user demands through A2A protocols and AI agent distribution. Cross-app personal memory, formed with user consent, will become a key competitive barrier for smartphone manufacturers. She also mentioned that OPPO is not rushing to monetize AI yet, prioritizing ecosystem building instead.

This explains OPPO's continued pursuit of external collaborations. When partnering with Alipay's AI agent "Abao," OPPO handled user intent understanding and personal memory, while Alipay managed service fulfillment. Now, by integrating Manus, OPPO extends cooperation to task planning, multi-step execution, and content generation.

From seeking AI talent externally to introducing mature agents, OPPO's approach to enhancing its AI capabilities has become increasingly direct. External support shortens development cycles but also delegates critical capabilities to partners.

On October 13, OPPO and Manus officially announced their partnership, integrating Manus's agent capabilities into AI Mind Pilot's new Agent mode. As introduced, users can let the system organize flight, hotel, and attraction bookings scattered across apps, generate itineraries using online data, or create presentations from phone files and photos.

Rapidly acquiring complex task capabilities through external platforms is a pragmatic business choice. However, Manus's technical strengths do not fully align with daily smartphone needs.

Manus excels at web research, document processing, content generation, and multi-step tasks, often relying on cloud computing, browsers, and external tools. Users provide a relatively complete goal and wait a few minutes for a report, table, or webpage.

Smartphone agents, however, operate in a different environment. Payments, social interactions, travel, messaging, and cross-app operations demand low latency while handling account verification, permission confirmations, interface changes, and task interruptions.

Manus thrives in its controlled execution environment but must navigate others' app rules when operating on smartphones.

This discrepancy means OPPO must invest heavily in system-level adaptations. While Manus already focuses on complex task decomposition and execution, deploying these workflows at scale across ColorOS devices requires substantial engineering work from OPPO.

OPPO's global website recently disclosed that AI Mind Pilot's new Agent mode will initially support both Manus and ChatGPT, offering limited free usage. Users with existing subscriptions can link their accounts to continue using supported services. This provides consumer choice and prevents over-reliance on a single platform.

However, Manus and ChatGPT's capabilities can also be accessed through other devices and services. As agent-provided task capabilities converge, ColorOS's long-term differentiation will increasingly depend on system memory, device synergy, and user experience.

If users merely access Manus services they already pay for via OPPO phones, the profit distribution between smartphone manufacturers and external platforms requires recalibration.

Manus's cost structure also warrants attention. According to its official explanation, complex tasks consume credits based on model calls, cloud virtual machines, and third-party interfaces, with actual usage depending on task complexity and duration.

Moreover, the partnership's exact launch timeline, supported regions, and service entitlements have not been fully disclosed. At this stage, product demonstrations alone make it difficult to gauge how much actual usage increment (incremental usage) Manus will drive for OPPO.

By integrating Manus into ColorOS, OPPO saves development time but also inherits its partner's service costs, commercial rules, and product iteration pace.

Jiang Yuchen previously emphasized that a system's core value lies in personal memory and aggregation-distribution. This approach remains reasonable in the agent era, but more partners necessitate a uniquely OPPO user experience within its system.

After seeking talent externally, OPPO now introduces Manus. While its AI acquisition channels have diversified, its own irreplaceability still requires clearer product differentiation.

On the same day OPPO chose to integrate Manus, another company pursued a bolder strategy.

On the evening of October 13, JieYueXingChen officially launched the STEPX Neo AI agent smartphone pilot edition, priced at 3,999 yuan. It includes smartphone hardware, the Step AOS agent operating system, Step series models, development tool Step Studio, and 12 months of Token usage rights.

As a pilot product, STEPX Neo's system maturity, third-party app compatibility, and scalability remain unproven. However, it offers a distinct competitive vision: smartphones are now marketed based on how many tasks their agents can complete, extending beyond chips, imaging, and screens.

ByteDance's collaboration with Nubia previously demonstrated this approach's appeal—and limitations. In December last year, the Doubao phone assistant technical preview entered the market via Nubia's M153 engineering prototype. On September 16, the Nubia NaviX Ultra, featuring the consumer version of Doubao's assistant, officially launched at 5,999 yuan (or 5,499 yuan after subsidies).

Doubao provides model and agent capabilities, while Nubia handles hardware and system adaptation. This model shares similarities with OPPO's Manus integration, but Doubao's assistant embeds deeper at the OS level, with cross-app execution as a core selling point.

However, after product launch, National Business Daily tests revealed that the Nubia NaviX Ultra's Doubao assistant still could not automate certain operations in apps like WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Meituan Waimai, and Taobao. The consumer version also introduced a screen automation operation declaration protocol, delegating permission decisions to third-party apps.

The controversies arising from the application risk control in the previous preview version have prompted a re-adjustment of relevant capabilities. Even if mobile phone manufacturers are willing to open up system permissions, other platforms may not necessarily be willing to allow intelligent agents to freely operate their services.

Doubao has first encountered the barriers of the application ecosystem. After Manus enters ColorOS, there is no inherent reason for it to automatically gain a passkey.

When StepFun released STEP X Neo this time, it specially (deliberately) emphasized its collaborations with platforms such as Alipay, Baidu, Meituan, JD.com, Didi, Ctrip, and Gaode Maps. This indicates that new entrants are also aware that having only models and hardware makes it difficult to independently build a complete intelligent agent experience.

Mobile phone manufacturers possess system permissions, internet platforms have services and transactional relationships, and model companies have task planning capabilities. All three parties aim to reach users, and cooperation agreements are beginning to address competitive issues that past product functionalities could not resolve.

OPPO's advantage lies in its established supply chain, distribution channels, and system ecosystem, eliminating the need to rebuild hardware manufacturing and after-sales service networks like new entrants. ColorOS's edge-side processing capabilities, long-term memory, and user information management also provide a relatively complete foundation for agents.

However, new entrants also have the opportunity to shift market expectations. Once consumers become accustomed to allowing AI to arrange travel, organize work files, or proactively handle daily tasks across applications, comparisons between flagship devices may extend to the performance of system agents. Better imaging and more powerful chips will still hold value, but their weight in high-end mobile phone purchasing decisions may change.

This competition is also beginning to influence OPPO's flagship product planning. On October 9, digital blogger @ShumaXianLiaoZhan revealed that OPPO is testing a standard 16:9 aspect ratio, wide straight-board engineering machine with an LIPO ultra-narrow four-equal-side design, a screen width of approximately 81 millimeters, and an overall width expected (expected) to be controlled within 85 millimeters.

Almost simultaneously, another leak about a wide foldable device also brought OPPO into the discussion. On October 10, a digital blogger exposed a wide foldable engineering machine equipped with a 2nm chip, a 7.6-inch inner screen, and a Hasselblad imaging solution, with media speculating based on related clues that it belongs to OPPO.

Regardless of whether the final product enters mass production, a wider foldable screen, if it can improve multi-window operation and mobile office experiences, does have the potential to synergize with system agents. However, a new screen form factor also implies a more complex supply chain, higher adaptation costs, and a smaller potential user base.

Especially as OPPO is compressing its low-margin products while continuing to increase high-end projects, the trade-offs in R&D resources will become more sensitive.

From a market perspective, Find, OnePlus, and future new form factor products can cover different needs, but the group also needs to maintain clear brand differentiation. If multiple flagship models primarily allocate sales among existing users, no matter how significant the hardware investment, the improvement in overall scale will be limited.

The backends of the three brands are consolidating, yet the form factors of flagship products continue to increase. The organizational costs saved by OPPO may soon need to be reinvested in new product experiments.

Especially for a mobile phone group whose global market share has dropped to just 9%, premiumization can no longer be supported solely by continuously improving hardware specifications. OPPO must encourage more consumers who originally used other brands to switch to ColorOS and continue using it throughout a complete device replacement cycle.

Hardware procurement and product iteration have relatively mature business methods, whereas the agent ecosystem involves model providers, internet platforms, system permissions, subscription fees, and user authorization. The business rules for the latter are still being formed, and how much initiative mobile phone manufacturers can retain is far from certain.

Over the past decade or so, competition in the mobile phone industry has followed a relatively clear mainline: manufacturers attract consumers through hardware innovation and channel investment, then rely on systems, applications, and services to extend user retention. Under this model, OPPO has established a vast retail network and positioned Find, Reno, OnePlus, and realme in different price bands and markets.

Today, the Interest relationship (stakeholder relationships) in the mobile phone industry are changing. The same technological wave is compressing profit margins for hardware manufacturers at one end while providing new model companies and service platforms with opportunities to enter the operating system at the other.

OPPO's collaboration with Manus indicates that it has chosen a more open approach to address this change. From a product development perspective, this facilitates rapid acquisition of complex task execution capabilities and avoids retaining all technical risks internally. Facing continuous iteration of model capabilities, relying on external partners does not inherently pose a disadvantage.

However, once AI enters mobile phones, existing business relationships will also be rearranged. Users can complete operations that previously required accessing multiple applications through a single intelligent agent; the services invoked by the agent, the reasoning fees generated, the retained task context, and who ultimately collects the service fees will all become new links in benefit distribution.

This transformation has not yet formed a stable pattern. StepFun is still validating the market demand for AI-native mobile phones, Doubao mobile phones still face restrictions from third-party application permissions, and OPPO's collaboration with Manus awaits large-scale user testing. No single company can be said to have established a clear advantage.

Nevertheless, the operational pressures faced by OPPO will not pause as a result. A global market share drop to 9% in the third quarter means it needs to pay even greater attention to each user loss; continued investment in high-end hardware and AI makes each product decision bear higher costs.

OPPO has excelled in selling mobile phones to consumers, but now, after the phone screen lights up, who arranges the next step for consumers is gradually becoming a new business.

In this business, mobile phone manufacturers remain important but can no longer single-handedly determine all the rules.

*The featured image and illustrations in the text are sourced from the internet.