Amber to start making Oppo, OnePlus, Realme phones in March 2027 quarter, double output in 2nd year

Electronics manufacturing services firm Amber Enterprises India expects to start manufacturing Chinese smartphones under Oppo, OnePlus and Realme brands from the March 2027 quarter and double the output in the second year, a top company official said.

‘We expect to begin with around 8 million units in first year’

Amber Enterprises India Executive Chairman and CEO and whole-time director Jasbir Singh, during the company's earnings call, said that the firm expects to start with production of 8 million units of Oppo group smartphone brands and scale it twofold to around 16 million units in the second year of operations.

"Our group is set to foray into mobile phones through a manufacturing collaboration agreement with Oppo Mobiles India. The scope covers three brands, Oppo, OnePlus and Realme. We are on course to commence the trial production by quarter 4 of FY27 and commercial production to begin quarter 1 of FY28," he said.

Amber has onboarded a chief operating officer for the mobile vertical.

"On the scale front, we expect to begin with around 8 million units in the first year, followed by a calibrated phase-wise ramp-up, and expect to double to almost 15-16 million in the second year of operations," Singh said.

Vivo and Oppo were started by China's BBK Electronics, but these companies claim to have independent operations.

Oppo smartphones are also produced at Vivo's manufacturing unit in Noida for sale in India.

Vivo is in the process of hiving off its plant to a joint venture company that it is creating with Dixon Technologies.

Oppo moving to Amber is an indicator that the Chinese mobile brands, which emerged from a common group, are moving towards asset-light models by reducing their manufacturing exposure in India.

Vivo has faced action from the Enforcement Directorate, while Oppo has faced action from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence on tax issues.

Vivo has been leading the Indian smartphone market in terms of sales volume. The company had 17.8 per cent market share, followed by Samsung with 17.6 per cent and Oppo at third spot with 13.6 per cent share in the second quarter (Q2) of 2026, according to Counterpoint Research.

Vivo and Oppo group brands, including iQoo, Realme, and OnePlus, jointly garnered 45.6 per cent of the Indian smartphone market in Q2, 2026.

Talking about the printed circuit board (PCB) business, Singh said there has been compression in margin of the company of bare PCB amid a steep rise in the copper-clad laminate (CCL) costs.

He said that the company has been passing on the rise in cost to clients with some lag.

"CopperClad Laminate price is continuing to increase. It will keep on increasing because of artificial intelligence and data centre requirements. There is a lot of shortage of Copperclad Laminate also. We are able to pass on to the customers all the price increases we have," he said.

The company expects to set up its CCL plant by 2029-30, Singh said.