China Mobile projected the oPhone would be the end-all-be-all Android with a proprietary set of apps.
It had strong backing. China Mobile and venture-backed Borqs, Aspire and Lenovo Mobile. It was a two-year project. It simply has not sold enough. And it may, possibly, be abandoned.
To have a blockbuster phone in China, it needs to be in the tens of millions of device sales per year, or "hero phones" as Nokia calls its best selling devices.
So why has the oPhone – and other smartphones – not taken off?
One reason that has been put forward is that the original operating system was too buggy and the upgrades that followed came too fast.
Business Insider reports no OEM has figured out how to get to Nokia’s "hero volumes" for smartphones in China. Nor does it seem likely in the near future.