Chinese smartphone vendor Oppo said on Thursday that it will launch its first smart watch next year, as the country's major smartphone makers including Huawei Technologies Co and Xiaomi Corp all geared up efforts on the internet of things.

Liu Bo, vice-president of Oppo, said at its developer conference on Thursday that the move aims to better tap the opportunities of IoT for a new growth engine.

The new plan comes with the handset vendor announcing on Thursday another 1 billion yuan ($145.7 million) to encourage global app developers to create quality content.

Last year, it poured 1 billion yuan into supporting its developers to create a sound app ecosystem.

The latest data showed that Oppo has accumulated 320 million users worldwide with over 100 million monthly active app users.