vivo closes its German online store
After Oppo and OnePlus stopped sales in Germany last summer, following a lawsuit from Nokia, vivo is now closing down its online store as well. Back in April, the German court ruled in favor of Nokia as vivo has apparently infringed a Nokia patent related to the WLAN connections in vivo's smartphones. The same reason why Oppo and OnePlus had to temporarily pull out from the German market.
Without much of a warning, vivo's website is now closed and German consumers can no longer buy a vivo smartphone in the country. The German branch now greets you with a short statement that vivo's products are not available at the moment, but existing vivo smartphone owners will still get customer service and software updates.
Notably, the patent lawsuit comes from the Finnish branch of Nokia related to the equipment supplier and not HMD Global, which now runs Nokia's smartphone business.