OPPO expands regional presence in AsPac

MANILA, Philippines — Chinese smart device brand OPPO is expanding its presence in the Asia Pacific market, as it establishes a hub center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, aimed at ushering the region into the 5G era.

The company made this announcement at the recently held APAC Strategy Launch in Malaysia where it presented its regional business strategies.

“Through the establishment of the APAC Hub Center, we are set to connect all markets and develop strategies more localized for the region,” OPPO APAC president Jimmy Yi said.

“We will also connect with our partners to uncover more opportunities and create more value. Last but not least, we will also connect our users to more smart devices to deliver the experience of intelligent connectivity,” he said.

The establishment of its APAC Hub Center is among the company’s initiatives to further widen its reach in the APAC region, which is the firm’s second largest market apart from China.

OPPO’s journey to APAC began in 2009 when it entered the Thailand market.A decade after its entrance, the company now has nearly 100 million active users in the region.

In line with the continued growth of its userbase in the region, Yi said the company is set to open six flagship OPPO stores in the region in 2020.

“Building upon strong leadership, professional teams, solid partnership networks, as well as premium products and service experiences, OPPO has become a leading smartphone brand in the APAC region,” the company said.

OPPO vice president and president for global sales Alen Wu said the APAC Hub Center would allow the company to be closer to its customers in the region, which will give it the opportunity to provide better products and services for its APAC userbase.

As an important part of OPPO’s global support system, the company said it would grant more flexibility to the operation of APAC Hub Center, constantly strengthening its operating capabilities backed by a series of supporting initiatives such as local recruitment, key channel building, operator customer services, product customization, co-branding and co-marketing.

Yi added that by having the regional hub center in Kuala Lumpur would allow the company to better manage its operations in nearby markets such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam.

“By having this presence, we can hire outstanding local talent so that our center-- with the help of these talents-- we can have better knowledge of the requirements of consumers and partners of the different markets,”Yi said.

Apart from the introduction of the APAC Hub Center, the company also launched its OPPO 5G landing project in APAC, where it has partnered with 15 carrier partners in the region, including the Philippines’ Globe Telecom, for the anticipated commercialization of 5G.

“We will work closely with different operators to make sure that we can expedite the process of having 5G products commercialized and launched in the market,” Yi said.

In line with its early push for 5G,OPPO established a communication standard team in 2015 and  has applied for 5G communication standard patents in more than 20 countries worldwide with more than 2,500 families of global patent applications completed.

OPPO has also launched the 5G landing project in other global locations in Barcelona, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Australia and Italy.

“In the future, with the APAC Hub Center, OPPO will work more closely with upstream and downstream partners in the industrial chain to deliver cutting-edge 5G experiences to users across APAC,” OPPO said.

The company expressed optimism for the potential of 5G in the APAC region with the rising smartphone penetration in the region. According to market research firm GfK, the APAC region accounted for 50 percent of global smartphone sales in 2019 and will continue to maintain growth momentum due to favorable demographics.

“The coming 5G era is expected to generate 170 million potential shipment units for global smartphone markets. As commercial 5G rollout ramps up in multiple markets in APAC in 2020, it will create unprecedented development opportunities in the region,”OPPO said.

OPPO acknowledges that the emergence of the next-generation mobile communications technology brings both new opportunities to the industry and creates new challenges to the overall operational capabilities of companies, which is why it is emphasizing the need for more research and development efforts.

“Following the mantra of ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’, OPPO is committed to orchestrating the company’s best global resources to power the development of local markets and working to engineer its strategic transformation for global business in order to evolve into a R&D-centric technology company,”the company said.

OPPO announced it would invest over $7 billion in R&D initiatives in the next three years, as it continues to focus on developing cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, 6G, AI, AR and big data, while also building core technologies for underlying hardware and software to explore the infinite possibilities in the era of intelligent connectivity. 

“OPPO has been more than just a smartphone maker. In fact, smartphones have simply been a tool for OPPO to deliver a diverse portfolio of technological services,” Wu said.

“OPPO will continue to improve its capabilities in hardware, software and services, as well as expanding its presence in the IoT field. Looking into the future, we will work with our customer and partners globally to open up more opportunities,”he added.

With the global commercial rollout of 5G and the continuous improvement of AI technology, OPPO stresses that ‘intelligent connectivity‘, rather than the Internet of Things, will truly bring about revolutionary user experiences.

“Today, IoT, 5G, Cloud, and AI cooperating with emerging core devices are vastly improving the quality and efficiency of people’s lives,” OPPO vice president and president of Intelligent Mobile Devices Bobee Liu said.

“We aim to create a people-oriented, multi-device, cross-scenario smart lifestyle service in four major areas — personal, home, offices, and travel — focusing strongly on interactive and experiential products. Meanwhile, we will continue to expand our interconnectivity capacity, building a service network to make a new and exciting user experience,”he said.

In line with OPPO’s push for intelligent connectivity, the company unveiled its upcoming suite of intelligent devices, including the OPPO 5G CPE T1, Enco Free true wireless headphones, AR glasses, as well as many technical achievements in flash charging technology, 5G, imaging, and software optimization.

The OPPO 5G CPE T1 is the connection hub developed by OPPO for scenarios such as home and office, broadening the 5G application scenario and extending the core experience of high speed and low delay 5G to Wi-Fi network equipment. OPPO 5G CPE T1 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modem, supporting standalone (NSA) and non-standalone (SA) modes, dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS), and global 5G roaming.

In addition, the OPPO Enco Free true wireless headphones use low-latency dual-pass Bluetooth technology and are equipped with ultra-dynamic speakers.The headphones are expected to be launched in the APAC region in January 2020.

With its new business strategies for the APAC region, OPPO aims to strengthen its grip on the market as it will remain focused on the research, development and innovation of core technologies.

“OPPO’s aspiration is more than ‘the leader in market share ‘, but to become the all-round leading brand in the APAC markets,”Yi said.

“Therefore, we are already evolving beyond a smartphone company and targeting the next business expansion in the IoT space for personal and home application scenarios, digital content creation and offering mobile internet services for more diversified users,” he added.

With a stronger presence in the region, Yi said the company would be able to better serve consumer demand in the APAC region.

“We are confident that we can connect to different markets, partners, devices, services and the consumers in the Asia Pacific region to create together a better tomorrow and to achieve our mission to be in APAC for APAC,” Yi concluded.