Barcelona:Heating up the race to showcase innovations ahead of MWC Barcelona, Chinese smartphone maker OPPO on Saturday unveiled its first 5G smartphone.

The camera-centric smartphone brand also showcased a 10x lossless zoom technology for enhanced smartphone photography. The smartphone with this technology that offers significant improvement over OPPO's previous 5x zoom technology will be launched in the second quarter of this year, said Chuck Wang, Product Manager, OPPO. OPPO's 5G smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, paired with the chipmaker's X50 5G modem, integrated RF (radio frequency) transceiver and RF front-end solutions. "Innovation is our top priority and we have made many recent developments to bring the future into consumer's hands. We look forward to continuing with this commitment and bringing to market more advances particularly in 5G and photography," OPPO Vice-President Anyi Jiang said. With over 10 per cent share in the India smartphone market, OPPO became the fourth-biggest smartphone player in the country in 2018 after Xiaomi, Samsung and Vivo, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). Earlier this week, South Korean tech giant Samsung unveiled Galaxy S10 5G, the company's first smartphone that will work in a 5G network. OPPO first showcased a 5G prototype of its flagship "Find X" smartphone in China in December 2018. The OPPO Find X was launched last year.

The company said it was committed to working with carrier partners like Swisscom, Telstra, Optus and Singtel to promote the implementation of 5G products and services. OPPO said it had set up a 5G standardisation team back in 2015 and invested in design and technology to ensure the production of a desirable phone that doesn't compromise on functionality to accommodate 5G features and benefits. The arrival of its first 5G smartphone could revolutionise consumers' lives through faster video download/upload and open paths for new gaming experiences among other things. But these phones will work only when 5G network actually arrives. That, however, is not stopping tech companies from showcasing their 5G-ready devices. Chinese giant Huawei is also set to showcase its first foldable and 5G-ready smartphone on the eve of MWC Barcelona. (IANS)