Sumit has earlier worked with Videocon, LG and Tata Teleservices as well. He has a BE degree in electronics from Nagpur University
(Pic Source – Linkedin)
Oppo has appointed Sumit Walia as Vice President for its product and marketing division in India. Sumit, who started his career in the consumer electronics domain in 2001, was previously working with Samsung as director and category head of mobile business for smartphones and feature phones priced below $300 (approx Rs 21,000).
It is to be noted here that Samsung, Xiaomi, BBK and Huawei are considered as the most successful smartphones in the country today. Oppo is one of the several smartphone brands that work under the umbrella of BBK in India. Interestingly, all these smartphone brands, apart from Samsung are headquartered in China. Samsung, on the other hand, is a Korea based consumer electronics giant.
Is Oppo planning to enter the feature phones category?
Sumit has a total experience of more than 18 years in the consumer electronics domain. During this tenure he has worked primarily on feature phones, CDMA devices and GSM handsets. There is no word in the industry yet but Oppo or BBK, might be giving some thoughts to enter the feature phone market.
Interestingly, India along with its neighboring continent Africa, is one of the largest feature phone markets in the world. It is worth mentioning here that India is also an important market for a lot of mobile phone companies.
What Sumit brings to the Oppo table
Sumit started working in the consumer electronics industry in 2001 as a management trainee with Videocon Industries. He, in Aug 2002 joined LG as an area sales manager for GSM handset sales before moving on to work with Huawei Technologies in April 2005. Sumit worked with Huawei for a period of one year and six months in Huawei’s CDMA devices unit. Back them GSM and CDMA phones were a big hit in India.
He then joined Tata Teleservices in October 2006 and worked there as a manager handling device planning, srategy and devices development. Promoted to the deisgnation of senor manager in October 2008 in Tata Teleservices, Sumit moved on to work with Samsung as a senior product manager in July 2010. He was taking care of the feature phones product management.
Sumit rose through the ranks in Samsung and became the director and category head for feature phones and smartphones priced below $ 300 in July 2010 before joining Oppo in April 2019.
