• OPPO South Africa has confirmed that the soon-to-be unveiled Reno11 series is not earmarked for launch in SA.
• This was confirmed to Hypertext in a recent interview with training manager, Bradley Young.
• While the precise model was not disclosed, another flagship product is expected to launch locally in the second half of 2024.

Having operated locally for a little over three years now, OPPO has slowly been carving out a space for itself in South Africa’s competitive smartphone market. 2023 was a significant year for the company, where it launched its first foldable in the country, as well as another flagship product with the Reno10 series.

Those hoping to see the follow up Reno11 series in SA may be out of luck, as OPPO SA’s training manager, Bradley Young, confirmed the device will not be launching locally.

Young confirmed the news to Hypertext in a recent interview, where we covered the plans that the brand had in store for 2024, along with what local consumers can look forward to seeing in the coming months.

The training manager shared the news when asked about OPPO’s vision of AI on a mobile device, with the Reno11 series in particular set to receive a handful of AI-powered features when it is officially launched.

“You know, to be upfront as much as we love the the Reno11, you won’t see it landing on South African shores,” he explained.

“The same AI technology that they’ve included on Reno11 without a doubt will be available on the next Reno. I think we’ll have an even better and refined capability and offering by the time we get that to that series of Reno,” he added.

We can understand the reasoning here, especially as the Reno10 series is only eight months old at this stage, so another iteration arriving locally so soon may not win as many consumer over who have just purchased a Reno10 Pro+ for example.

While the Reno11 series is not officially in the offing for SA, there is still the prospect of new smartphone hardware. This as Young noted that another noteworthy device will be landing in the latter half of the year, although he was unable to divulge what model of phone this would be.

“It’s not gonna be long before you see the the next iteration of Reno queuing up and ready to launch in the second half of the year,” he noted.

Precisely what model of Reno that will be, however, remains to be seen, but it’s clear the brand is carefully considering the devices it chooses to launch locally in order to have the maximum return on investment.