Chinese smartphone brand Oppo eyes global expansion with launch of high-end 5G handsets

Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is the latest brand to make a push into the high-end segment to escape price wars at home, but the move comes just as overall industry sales are slumping due to the impact of the coronavirus.

Oppo, the world’s fifth largest smartphone vendor, earlier this month launched a 5G flagship phone with the starting price of 5,499 yuan (US$784). The Find X2 series, the most expensive ever released by the company, signals its growing ambition in China’s higher-end smartphone segment currently dominated by Huawei with a more than 80 per cent share.

The launch follows a similar move by local rival Xiaomi and is part of a strategy to promote the brand in mature overseas markets at a time when Huawei is facing headwinds selling internationally after being put on a US trade blacklist that prohibits it from using Google mobile services.

Oppo, headquartered in Dongguan, Guangdong, has previously offered smartphones in the mid to low price range with entertaining marketing strategies targeting young people in the country’s lower-tier cities. The new flagship phones also show it has ambitions to expand its overseas presence from developing markets in Asia to Europe where smartphone users are more willing to shell out for premium models.

Data from research firm Counterpoint shows that higher-end smartphones gained in popularity last year, with demand for models in the US$800 to US$1,000 price range jumping 60 per cent year on year in the third quarter, accounting for one fifth of sales.

“The high-end is a growing segment and we have to enter that market,” Oppo vice-president Alen Wu said in a group media interview after the company live-streamed the launch of the product amid nationwide restrictions on travel and large gatherings because of the coronavirus outbreak. “The Find series will be the main models in our higher-end segment and we will have a new generation of [the series] every year.”