
Vivo's iQOO is joining an army of Chinese smartphone sub-brands
Is Vivo making a line of gaming phones?
With a futuristic image posted on China's social media, smartphone brand Vivo announced it will launch a new sub-brand: iQOO.
The company told Abacus that iQOO was created for “the most discerning and demanding demographic with the highest expectations of mobile phone performance” -- lending some weight to suggestions that iQOO is a gaming phone.

Xiaomi spin-off Redmi wants to own the budget phone market
Of course, some of you may wonder if sub-branding really works: Just look at the mediocre results Lenovo has had with Motorola. Last year has seen many new sub-brands pop up in China, some with similar names (I'm looking at you Redmi and Realme) so it's not surprising that people are getting confused.
The reason might be that sub-brands usually mean cheaper phones, and cheaper phones are good for the one market in the world where smartphone sales are rising
With that in mind, it’s interesting to see Vivo pursue to the high-end with its sub-brand, not the budget side.
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