Vivo Replaces Cloudfone As NBA’s Official Partner In the Philippines

Vivo will now be the official smartphone of the NBA in the Philippines, building on a similar deal in the Chinese market. As part of its latest deal, Vivo will be the Presenting Partner of the NBA Playoffs Bracket Challenge, a fantasy basketball game that allows participants to submit their NBA Playoffs predictions.

It will also back the youth-oriented Jr. NBA and NBA 3X Philippines events to stage interactive fan activities and showcase its latest mobile devices. Additionally, Vivo will be integrated into content on NBA Facebook, including select game highlights, vignettes and photos.

Vivo Philippines CEO Ted Xiong said, “We are excited to partner with the NBA, who share our core values of teamwork, respect, and community. The popularity of the NBA will enhance our brand image and introduce our mobile devices to more users, and we look forward to working with the league to create experiences for fans to enjoy the game.”

According to the ASN Index, Vivo is currently the market leader (47.2%) in the Asian sponsorship market with almost US$988.5m in investment since Q116, however, investment in 2018 has dwindled by almost 2.9x to US$160m so far in 2018 from US$460.6m last year.

While the Philippines sponsorship market has only seen US$2.4m in investment since Q116, led by Oppo Mobile (33.3%), Cloudfone (26.6%) and Vivo (20.9%), all the deals have been in the basketball and celebrity endorsement platforms. Vivo has heightened its investment in Q218, which is not surprising as the brand grew its market share in the Philippines from 8% in Q217 to 16% in Q218.