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How Oppo became one of the biggest smartphone makers in China

Oppo is a Chinese smartphone maker that grew rapidly via offline sales in China’s lower-tier cities and rural areas, with budget phones that appeal to young users. Recently, it's started releasing high-end flagships.

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An OPPO store in Shenzhen. (Picture: SCMP)
This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Despite sharing the same parent, Oppo does not have the same high profile in the US as its sister brand, OnePlus. But back home in China, it’s one of the biggest names in smartphones.

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In both 2017 and 2018, Oppo held the second spot in the Chinese smartphone market, trailing only Huawei. Globally, it’s also the fifth biggest smartphone maker by shipments in the first quarter this year, according to IDC.
Instead of OnePlus, Oppo is actually closer to another sister smartphone company: Vivo. All three share the same parent, BBK Electronics, which was initially a maker of VCD and DVD players and educational electronics. Before starting BBK Electronics, founder Duan Yongping was behind China’s beloved Subor gaming console, a knockoff of Nintendo’s Famicom (known as the NES in the US).

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Founded in 2004 by Chen Mingyong as one segment of BBK Electronics, Oppo made music players before venturing into phones in 2008. Its first smartphone, the X903, was launched in 2011, the same year Xiaomi launched its first smartphone. That was when the iPhone 4 became popular in China
“I thought Apple would have influence, maybe in five or six years,” Chen said to Chinese media in 2013, adding that all he was thinking about then was still flip phones and slider phones. “I didn’t expect Apple to have an influence so big and so fast.”
In the same year, the company scored Leonardo DiCaprio as a spokesperson for its Find X903 smartphone, but the sales for that phone was apparently so low that Pete Lau, then Vice President of Oppo (and now CEO of OnePlus), reportedly said that they were “too embarrassed" to reveal it.
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An Oppo store in Shenzhen. (Picture: SCMP)
An Oppo store in Shenzhen. (Picture: SCMP)
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