The key moment of OPPO: brand upgrade and 5G battle

The company, which has been rooted in the mid-end market for 10 years, is in an unprecedented bottleneck. Under the impact of Huawei and Xiaomi offline stores, the mid-end market advantage has been lost and it is not enough for its next decade. OPPO's share in the Chinese smartphone market has fallen, and how to better use the next wave of change to capture the high-end market has become its core issue. OPPO is trying to attack the high-end market, but the practice is still conservative, and the launch of the Reno series takes into account the mid- to high-end market. However, there are great contradictions in the high-end market and the pleasing of young people alone.

Through the brand building road of rural encircling the city, OPPO has accumulated a high profit and then reversed the subsidy of the brand and promotion of the game is very successful. However, OPPO relies too much on the flow of heart-to-heart, and the market dividends of a large number of third- and fourth-tier cities are also burying the crisis in the future. China's market environment and format are changing. d is to attack first- and second-tier cities. OPPO is laying a flagship store under the line in the north, and hopes to adjust the layout according to the trend of consumer shopping in the retail channel layout.

On September 26, with Huawei officially releasing Mate 30 in Shanghai, China's four major mobile phone manufacturers completed the "parade" of the flagship machine in the second half of the year. According to IDC's second quarter report data, global mobile phone shipments continued to decline in the seventh quarter. The new growth is pinned on the 5G iteration. At the key node of the commercial first year, 5G becomes a topic that cannot be avoided anyway. NEX3 5G version, Xiaomi 9 Pro 5G version, Mate 30 5G version have appeared. From "the world's first unbounded waterfall screen" to "the world's first second-generation 5G mobile phone" to "the world's first surround screen", the battle is everywhere. Only OPPO is left behind. Whether it is to release Reno2 in Shanghai on September 10th or Reno Ace to be released on October 10th, it has nothing to do with 5G.

On September 10th, Shanghai World Sports Center, OPPO Vice President Shen Yiren explained to the media: “Why is this generation (Reno2) not a 5G product? We as a terminal manufacturer hope to launch parallel with the operators and at the most appropriate time. In order to make consumers feel that the original 5G era is like this." For this statement, a small person inside the millet said, "When the popularity is over, then it is too late, and other families have educated users." But in fact, a related data shows that OPPO's standard necessary patents are second only to Huawei in China's mobile phone manufacturers. Why is there no 5G mobile phone launched in the domestic market at this stage? The reason for the abandonment may be attributed to other deeper considerations. The company, which has been rooted in the mid-end market for 10 years, is in an unprecedented bottleneck. Under the impact of Huawei and Xiaomi offline stores, the mid-end market advantage has been lost and it is not enough for its next decade.

According to a report released by IDC, in the second quarter of 2019, OPPO's share in the Chinese smartphone market fell more than 10%, losing the second place. OPPO is also aware of the potential crisis, so that the entire 2019 first half of the action: stop the R series, launch the new Reno series, redesign the original logo ... layer by layer to tear off the "main young" label while higher than The 5G flagship machine with an average price of 5,000 yuan is not the only OPPO existing users can digest. How to better use the next wave of changing tides to capture the high-end market has become the core issue. Channels, markets, marketing, positioning, vivo and OPPO have always been similar, and the same challenges are faced in brand upgrades. In the latest flagship machine NEX3, there is no logo of the vivo on the poster, and the body does not have the logo of the vivo. Huboshan, vice president of vivo, once said that this is not to let vivo interfere with the user's feelings about NEX3: "NEX's simultaneous technology and fashion role is a relatively important concern for Apple users. We also don't want other interference factors to interfere with users. The view on this phone, so NEX3 does not appear in the vivo logo is also here."

The birth of NEX3 undertook a mission of the revolution of the vivo channel. The flagship machine 4998 starts at a price no less than Huawei Apple, but uses the narrowest product channel in history. Abandoning the extensive deployment of offline channels, NEX3 is only sold in less than 10,000 high-end outlets and flagship stores. “vivo is more business than OPPO, and it also sponsors some sports. OPPO often only puts a lot of variety shows.” An industry analyst said that in his opinion, OPPO upgrade is more difficult than vivo, from Song Hye Kyo’s Mobile phone background music to Li Yifeng, Yang Yang's "charged five minutes of talks for two hours", OPPO completed the birth of the "factory machine" image to solidify, its "capillary network" type of offline channel management mode also compiled a solid for itself The cage.

In mid-2017, OPPO Vice President Wu Qiang was asked by the media in an interview: “OPPO is the main young man, how to plan for other target users?” After being questioned several times, Wu Qiang blurted out: “There will be next A group of young people." A year ago, the R series, which is the main young man, was a huge success. The OPPO mobile phone shipment growth rate was as high as 122%, and the first domestic mobile phone. Perhaps because of this, Wu Qiang hopes that the future of OPPO will be for the next batch of young people. Today, two years later, OPPO has been cultivating the R series for six years, and Wu Qiang is unlikely to give the same answer. At 10 am on March 11, OPPO officially launched a new sub-brand Reno with the news that he replaced Wu Qiang, vice president of the Chinese market, Shen Yiren. An advertiser who cooperated with OPPO said that “Shen Yi’s Weibo” is nothing new to the outside world, and OPPO has gradually evolved into a kind of pre-heating method that attracts attention.

“Shen Yiren’s update of Weibo is mostly from public relations. OPPO sometimes directly informs us when Shenyi people will post Weibo and lists relevant content to remind the media to participate in forwarding on time,” said the person. After the 88-year-old Shenyi, from Xiaomi's OPPO, the biggest success was to plan a marketing case of “charge five minutes, talk two hours”. In addition to OPPO's youngest vice president, he also has a title – president of global marketing. Over-reliance on marketing, product low distribution and high sales is the industry's previous perception of OPPO, but this time Weibo update is not just marketing. The release of Reno also released 13 illustrations and quietly changed to their new logo. The new logo has been changed to the past, and the gap of the "P" letter has been "healed". The "O" part of the four letters is completely consistent, and it is not the same as in the past.

“The R series sales growth is weak, OPPO is trying to attack the high-end market, but the practice is still conservative, so there is no radical introduction of high-end brands directly, but the Reno series has taken into account the mid-to-high-end market.” Analysts said that the high-end market and individual pleasing Young people have great contradictions. "OPPO is trying to weaken the inherent impression left in the user's mind. It is difficult to determine how much the brand can be lifted. In 2016, Xiaomi released 16 mobile phones in one breath, and the brand was particularly chaotic. Xiaomi fell to the bottom of the year." Another uncertainty facing OPPO is its global position.

On August 28th, OPPO released Reno2 to India in New Delhi, India; during the World Cup, OPPO released Find X in Europe at the Louvre in Paris. "Europe was once the home of Huawei, India is the home of Xiaomi, OPPO has always been a follow-up strategy in overseas strategy, although the layout is difficult to take root." Industry sources said. Two months ago, IDC released statistics on the global smartphone market in the second quarter, showing that OPPO shipments showed almost no growth. It is worth mentioning that in the first quarter of this year, OPPO global mobile phone sales were overtaken by vivo, benefiting from the slight gap of 0.1% and not being folded into the “Others” sequence. During the World Cup, the high-end flagship machine Find X released by OPPO is not mature due to the immature supply chain.

"People who buy OPPO are not hot before. The configuration, endorsement, and brand are a bit tired. It doesn't work for sending things. The reward for selling a new machine is less than half of the previous one." A Zhejiang mobile phone agent said. In June of this year, he chose not to act as an agent for OPPO but to replace the green billboard with Huawei. In 2016, OPPO won the title of China's smartphone shipments under the leadership of Chen Mingyong. However, before this, OPPO and vivo in the eyes of Yu Chengdong are just "Dongguan brand" that has never seen the world. It is difficult to become a big tool. Inside OPPO, “the story of earth-shattering is not excavated, like dripping water, it is very dull”, and it is not smooth sailing.

Chen Mingyong, Shen Yuzhi, followed Duan Yongping's time for more than 20 years, immersed in the essence of channel management and product research and development concepts, and realized Duan Yongping's "Dashe is great" road, willing to share the benefits Agent. It is also because of the close relationship with the channels and agents that OPPO can survive the biggest disaster in history. In 2011, the rapid spread of domestic 3G networks was far from what OPPO could have expected. Millions of 2G mobile phone inventory almost required the company's life. Large and small counters have used 3G as a selling point, but OPPO agents are still selling 2G mobile phones at low prices. In a few months, the money earned in the previous year will be squandered.

OPPO continues the two characteristics of BBK: one is to infiltrate the countryside, and the other is that the agent holds part of OPPO shares. However, when Xiaomi’s Internet game was the hottest, Wu Qiang once suspected his agent model and urged OPPO to learn Xiaomi and start investing more energy online than offline. But as more and more Internet phone brands joined the competition, the initial cost of eight dollars was quickly raised to more than 200 yuan. OPPO found that offline channel costs could be lower and began to expand fierce offline channels, so that the number of offline channels more than doubled in 2016 compared with 2014. OPPO's first-level agents have been divided into 36 in 2016, with more than 200,000 sales outlets and 5,300 specialty stores. The first-level agents and factories share each other's shares, share risks and share profits, and are internally referred to as “vendor integration”. Through the brand building road of rural encircling the city, OPPO has accumulated a high profit and then reversed the subsidy of the brand and promotion of the game is very successful. As the third- and fourth-tier cities set off a wave of smartphone replacements, OV relied on the absolute dominant position on the core streets and played a beautiful turnaround.

Decorative green flags, huge star posters, tall inflatable balloons, or a slogan of “5 minutes of charging, 2 hours of conversation” has been standard in third- and fourth-tier cities in the past few years. . In the store, the most conspicuous counters will always be reserved for OPPO and vivo, and the shopping guide will do its best. Whether you have seen Xiaomi or Huawei, they will always start with “If purely personal advice...”, supplemented by sales. Words such as beauty, performance, etc., make OV your ultimate choice. The shopping guide is like a chicken blood, and it has a strong initiative. It seems to know why it is fighting. At the beginning of 2017, IDC released a data report showing that OPPO grew by 122.2% year-on-year, surpassing Huawei's Apple millet to become the Chinese market leader; vivo's year-on-year growth rate has also doubled to 96.9%, ranking third in the Chinese market.

Among them, the sales volume of OPPO R9 is as high as 20 million units. This figure is still the highest peak of domestic mobile phone sales in the price range of 2500 or so today. In September 2016, Huawei launched the Nova series mobile phone pixel-level simulation OV mode, and the county plan is in full swing. This year, Xiaomi suffered from the sales of Waterloo. Lei Jun was in charge of the supply chain and actively prepared for the Xiaomi home project under the line. Due to the excessive use of effective means to obtain a flow of people with a sense of purpose, the OPPO grading marketing and franchise store model has found a large number of market dividends in third- and fourth-tier cities, but also buried a crisis in the future.

In February 2017, Jingdong, who was in the limelight, gave Liu Qiangdong the courage, so that he was the guest of the CCTV financial channel "Meet the big coffee". "Our share of e-commerce in Suqian City is already the first, more than any friend. Business, but I actually found out where the Gome and Suning stores are still there, what OPPO, and all kinds of specialty stores, that is the shame of our Jingdong, brothers!" Liu Qiangdong's "shame" It is the weapon of OPPO's summit. All these Lei Jun are in their eyes. On the one hand, they claim that Xiaomi wants to make up the class. On the one hand, it is difficult to conceal their dissatisfaction: "I think the core reason for their success this year is the change of the 3, 4 and 5 tier cities, and the information asymmetry, because The more transparent the information, the more transparent the information (in the 3rd, 4th and 5th tier cities), we don’t know how much money is in the end, and there are other options."

Now all this has changed. With the sinking of the market, the people of the third and fourth tiers are as familiar with the Internet as the first and second tier residents. The user purchases and starts to judge independently and no longer rely solely on shopping guide recommendation. OPPO's innate advantage, Lei Jun The information asymmetry in the mouth has lost the enemy's first chance. “The Chinese market compared with last year, due to the impact of the environment, the changes in the entire format, and our own optimization of the past channels, we have taken the initiative to shut down many remote, small stores, this aspect is the market change On the other hand, the demand for brand upgrades." Wu Qiang said in a recent interview. "In fact, from 2015 to 2017, I think that there are some irrationalities in the channels under the line. Because the subsidies of operators are relatively large, the terminals of retail sales are relatively fast, but they are not particularly healthy." Baishan told the media. The third- and fourth-line mobile phone bonuses disappeared, and the mobile phone giants turned around and turned to the shopping malls of first- and second-tier cities. They began to “re-enact” the Apple Store model that first landed in the United States in May 2001. The store’s display is not just a mobile phone, but a Hundreds of SKUs.

In order to capture first- and second-tier cities, OPPO has laid off its flagship store in the north, and whether it is two or three hundred square meters of Qihua Road or five or six hundred square meters of Nanjing Road, SKU has less than ten models of mobile phones. Unlike the huge distribution system of the past, this is a completely strange battlefield. "After the shopping mall business, some traditional layouts will be adjusted. Whether it is Huawei, or vivo, or oppo, not only meet the needs of consumers in the product, but also in the retail channel layout. According to consumer shopping trends to adjust the layout of retail," Hu Baishan said. Standing in a first- and second-tier city is not just a simple shop. It needs to stand firm in the high-end market of around 5,000 yuan. OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi are almost in a blank state. “OPPO has its own Find series, but it has been stopped for four years after the main push of the R series. In strict sense, OPPO does not have its own flagship machine.” OPPO internal staff said, “Find positioning is like concept machine and mass production. Between the machines."

The problem that plagues OPPO is not only to expand offline channels, but OPPO is harder to develop in more transparent online channels. OPPO's existing Reno and K3 are also aimed at the online crowd, the same configuration of the R17 PRO and K3 sold to two extreme prices. "Although there will be differences in the fuselage, materials and appearance, but the e-commerce model is more about configuration, often there will be experience under the line and then e-commerce channels to buy, information asymmetry has been difficult to earn money." An agent in Zhejiang said. In January of this year, Lei Jun split the Redmi brand and combed out the two product lines of Xiaomi and Redmi, officially blowing the horn of counterattack Huawei.

Among them, the millet line includes the Xiaomi digital series and the Xiaomi MIX series, which are mainly in the mid-to-high-end market and the new retail market. Redmi represents the market below the red rice and millet digital series, pursuing the ultimate cost performance and focusing on the e-commerce market. granary. Vivo turned to technological innovation, in order to get rid of the implicature of the user's inner impression, do not hesitate to weaken the logo on the NEX3 product. Vivo has also undergone tremendous changes in the NEX3 channel, abandoning the extensive deployment of offline channels, making its listing sales the narrowest product channel in history. Compared with vivo and Xiaomi, the change of OPPO is particularly conservative, which is the same as the thought of Sun Tzu's Art of War, which is advocated by OPPO CEO Chen Mingyong. "There is no such thing as a good warrior. There is no such thing as a good doctor. The victory of a good warrior is also true. There is no odd victory, no intellectual name, no bravery. So it is better than victory." The OPPO does not believe or want to try