Vivo has launched its very own sub-brand called “IQOO”, not long after Xiaomi announced that “Redmi” became a separate entity aka the company’s sub-brand. According to Abacus News (owned by the South China Morning Post), the company said it will be targeting “the most discerning and demanding demographic with the highest expectations of mobile phone performance”, which kind of suggests that IQOO may be Vivo’s gaming smartphone-focused company, or a company that will release high-end devices in general, depending on how you want to look at the quoted statement.
IQOO already has a Weibo (Chinese social network) account, and also a Twitter account. There’s not much content on either of those two accounts at the moment, both accounts have posted a cityscape image, while IQOO’s Weibo account also has a rap song on its channel, for whatever reason.
Those of you who prefer Facebook, IQOO is available there as well. The company’s Facebook page was opened a while back, as there are some images there that date back to June last year. It seems like Vivo waited for a while to officially announce its sub-brand, even though that announcement has been planned for some time now.
Now, what would a brand be without a website, IQOO has its official website as well, but unfortunately, it doesn’t feature anything too interesting at the moment. Copyright on that website dates back to 2011, and even though it says that the copyright belongs to Weaver Mobile Communications, MySmartPrice managed to find out that Vivo is the owner of the website / domain.
What Can We Expect From IQOO?
At the moment, the company did not really share its goal, other than the quite that is available in the first paragraph. Based on that quote, the company will either release gaming smartphones exclusively, or will aim to release high-end devices, as that quite does not exactly point to an entry-level or mid-range smartphone.
A separate gaming brand for Vivo would make sense, as both Xiaomi and Nubia already have one (Black Shark and Red Magic, respectively), and both of those brands have already released smartphones. The gaming smartphone market is constantly growing, despite the fact many people still don’t see the point in releasing gaming-focused smartphones.
IQOO is expected to share more information regarding its vision in the near future, as we still do not know in which markets will it operate, though it is quite possible that its devices will make its way to China first, and then be pushed to other markets… that is at least Vivo’s way, so it’s possible that its sub-brand will adapt it.
Considering that IQOO plans to introduce high-end smartphones, gaming-focused or not, it’s safe to assume that the company is working on a Snapdragon 855-based smartphone. Such companies almost always aim to include top-of-the-line chip in their new smartphones, and go from there. That is only our guess, as we’re still not sure if IQOO started working on a device or not, but we’ll hopefully find out soon enough.