OPPO’s Bold Move Targets Premium Smartphone Market
The Find X5 Pro is OPPO's most advanced product yet.
Sitting in third place with one attempt left in her first Olympic final, the 18-year old needed the jump of her life to have any chance of winning gold.
With the world’s glare on her, she hurtled down the giant ramp and launched 20 feet into the air. In what seemed like a fraction of a second, she pulled off an astonishing move – a four-and-a-half-revolution manoeuvre known as a 1620 – before landing her skis safely.
Eileen Gu had never even attempted this trick before – not even in practice. But after the most dramatic finale, the freestyle skier and model was now the Olympic “big air” champion. Resilient, bold and spontaneous, it was the ultimate performance under pressure and one of the moments of the Beijing Winter Games.
Gu’s incredible story resonates deeply with smartphone maker OPPO. Once seen as a budget brand whose success was largely confined to its home China market, it made a bold decision to move out of its own comfort zone and produce more innovative, higher-end devices – an extremely challenging space.
At the end of last year, OPPO unveiled the Find N, the result of four years of research and development, six generations of prototypes and represented a significant step forward in foldable technology. Its crease-free display, smaller size and ability to stand at any angle between 50-120 degrees made it a more user-friendly option, propelling foldables in the minds of consumers from niche market curiosity to approachable life companions.
Hardcore Innovation
With global smartphone sales largely flat[1] after a decade of almost exponential growth, 2021 was a watershed year for OPPO. Its global sales soared 22%, outstripping the industry average of 7%, and those sales were driven not by its lower-cost handsets but more by high-end models.
“This extraordinary growth has been propelled by OPPO’s commitment to hardcore innovation that puts consumers and their experiences at the center of everything,” said Pete Lau, the brand’s Chief Product Officer.
Those consumers now come from more than 50 countries worldwide, which suggests that strategy is on the mark.
“OPPO’s philosophy is to develop premium, best-in-class technologies – not just novelty technologies that are used occasionally by a small group of niche users, but necessity technologies for everyday life. That ‘Novelty-to-Necessity’ philosophy drove the development of the Find N,” explained Lau.
“New form factors are ushering in an exciting new time in smartphone technology,” he added. “OPPO has invested significant time and effort experimenting with form, hinge designs, display materials and aspect ratios, to create a foldable device that meets the needs of more users. With the Find N, we aimed to change people’s perceptions about what a smartphone can offer.”[2]
The Find N won immediate positive feedback from users and industry insiders alike. The model sold out during its pre-sale, generating more than one million pre-orders and winning a nomination for the “Disruptive Device Innovation Award” at the 2022 annual Global Mobile Awards held in Barcelona in March, one of the industry’s most prestigious accolades.
Find X5 Pro: The Most Powerful Imaging Yet
If the Find N was the most significant product to emerge from OPPO’s $7 billion research and development program over the past three years, another recent launch hints at far more to come.The new Find X5 Pro pushes the boundaries of innovation even further. The centerpiece of this device is the most powerful imaging experience ever seen on a smartphone, driven by OPPO’s proprietary, cutting-edge MariSilicon X Neural Processing Unit (NPU). This technology makes 4K Ultra Night Video with live preview possible for the first time on an Android smartphone, processing an incredible 18 trillion operations per second.
It’s the biggest leap forward OPPO has made, but more importantly it delivers on OPPO’s goal of meeting the everyday needs of users. Recent industry surveys found that by far the most important camera enhancement desired by consumers is better low-light image quality.[3] So, with the Find X5 Pro, suddenly all the myriad milestone moments of people’s lives that take place at night and indoors can be captured in full clarity. Memories of family moments, parties, or dinners will no longer be a frustrating, murky blur.
“MariSilicon X can achieve performance up to 20 times faster than the Find X3 Pro, capturing Night Video by applying complex enhancements to each frame in real time,” said Venus Dang, Director of OPPO’s Find Series.
“OPPO has been behind some of the biggest imaging innovations in the industry, and with the Find X5 Pro we’re opening up a whole new world of computational photography for users.”
Smarter, Kinder Technology
The global market has already responded to this combination of premium positioning and user-focused innovation. In 2021, for the second consecutive year, more than half of OPPO’s sales were outside China.
OPPO ranked second for 5G Android smartphones shipments in both 2020 and 2021. Last year, sales in Europe grew 78% – doubling in Italy and Germany and more than tripling in Switzerland and Portugal – while sales more than quadrupled in countries including South Africa and Mexico.
The Find X5 Pro looks certain to continue that momentum. The flagship premium handset has already been chosen by all major telco operators across Western Europe, as well as in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, while OPPO has established strategic partnerships with more than 80 of these operators. In Spain and France, OPPO ranked first among telcos for customer satisfaction in 2021.
“OPPO aims to build up a technology ecosystem based on great products delivering a smart lifestyle to consumers around the world. So, making great products that are innovative, reliable and human-centric has become a belief that runs deep in our bones,” said Lau.
“We believe it is the shortest way to realize the company’s mission of ‘technology for mankind and kindness for the world’.”
As Eileen Gu pondered her final run atop the ramp in Beijing that day, she knew the only option was to produce something different -- something her competitors couldn’t match.
OPPO understands that sentiment well.
