Apple and Samsung have a substantial market share in the Chinese smartphone market. Oppo, and to a lesser extent Vivo, are rapidly claiming a place in the smartphone landscape. While one can find an Oppo shop on every corner, you have to work hard to find the official Apple and Samsung shops.
Even in a small city like Suzhou you stumble across Oppo shops. They just look like an Apple store. Because of the small size, there is usually only one table with the Oppo flagship R9. Playing arround with an R9 is no problem. I immediately got one in my hands. And, to be honest, they are cool for a not too high price.
For one of the Oppo shops in Suzhou, situated in a large shopping street, it was very busy because of one of the many promotion activities. In Chinese shopping streets one could loose his hearings because of an overkill of advertising messages that are blown into the streets via huge sound systems. Oppo does not do that in Suzhou at least. Curiosity is aroused by the jovial distribution of promotional material. With no noise and not that many fuzz.
Oppo strategy to be visuable on the offline market is of course a smart strategy. The direct contact with the customer works. I was amazed that I had, within ten seconds, an R9 printed in my knobs after I entered the store. Without electronic security or anything else that could stand in the way of my test experience.
But there is another reason why Oppo's strategy is paying off. By being physically present in the streets, the brand appeals to a much larger target group than just young people. For example, many older Chinese people are not familiar with the Internet, but still want a smartphone. They buy it in the shop and that also applies to the many illiterates in the country. As a result, villagers in the Zhangjiajie area can easily purchase an Oppo, because there too I saw an Oppo shop in one of the villages around the famous nature park.
Will Apple and Samsung have sleepless nights because of the competition of Oppo and Vivo? Probably not yet. The impact of the big brands is still there, and the richer Chinese still want to distinguish themselves with something from abroad. But the Chinese brands do have a home market that is infinitely large. And imagine how overjoyed the authorities are with the rise of the Chinese brands. In addition, a device like the R9 Plus has specs that can easely be conpared with the specs from flagships in the high end market. In spite of that, The R9 Plus costs about 450 euros. An iPhone or a Galaxy with similar specs costs almost double.
The rise of Oppo should not worry the West, but there are lessons to be learned. China is still the land of the copycats for many. But gradually the point has been reached that the copies are better than the originals. The time when Western companies could win the Chinese consumer without any significant effort seems to be coming to an end. Consumers are not only more self-aware, but patriotism is also beginning to rise. Moreover, the domestic market is growing fast. It is almost impossible for Western companies to keep up with that. Doing nothing and wait will mean they’re loosing the battle.
