Jay Chou, Wang Junkai and other superstars gathered to cheer for the launch of OPPO R11. Do you still insist that Xiaomi and Meizu lost in terms of channels?

The domestic mobile phone market was surging in 2016. In a market environment dominated by fierce competition, with mobile phones being highly homogenized, functions far exceeding those of other products, and the penetration rate of smart phones reaching a peak, a total of 467 million mobile phones were sold in China (data source: IDC), creating the world's highest year-on-year growth rate of 8.7%, far exceeding the year-on-year growth rate of 2.7% in China in 2015.

Among them, domestic mobile phone brands have made great contributions. Although the participation rate is still relatively low worldwide, domestic mobile phones have completely taken the lead in the domestic market. Among them, the OPPO brand cannot be ignored. OPPO's annual shipments reached 78.4 million units, and its market share doubled compared to 2015, reaching 16.8%, surpassing Huawei and becoming the number one in China.

On June 10, OPPO's previous flagship R9s finally retired. That night, OPPO and Zhejiang Satellite TV jointly held a mid-year celebration and OPPO R11 launch conference, with many stars, including Jay Chou, Sandy Lam, Li Yifeng, JJ Lin, Stefanie Sun, Wang Junkai and other stars willing to serve as the foil for the OPPO new R11, which has 20 million front and rear pixels and takes clearer photos.

OPPO R11 has achieved a new breakthrough and upgrade in photography, and provides professional solutions for portrait photography, which is commonly used by users. In terms of overall performance, OPPO R11 is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 mobile platform with stronger performance and lower power consumption, and is equipped with the new ColorOS 3.1 system, which has a faster and safer user experience. At the same time, as the official technical partner of King of Glory, OPPO R11's gaming experience has also been comprehensively improved.

It seems that OPPO R11 strategically inherits and develops the product positioning and design advantages of R9s, and should also continue the legend of the previous flagship generation, but many voices in the industry do not think so.

OPPO's success has attracted domestic mobile phone manufacturers to pay attention to offline

As we all know, OPPO, as an old traditional manufacturer that has experienced the era of feature phones, has unique advantages in channels.

During the explosive growth of smartphones, OPPO achieved good results, but was not so prominent. However, with the arrival of the platform period of the mobile phone market, the problem of mobile phone homogeneity has become prominent, and mobile phone performance is seriously oversupplied. The importance of channels has become apparent. OPPO, which did not perform well online, has finally reaped the rewards of its years of hard work in channels.

This is the consistent interpretation of OPPO's "secret to success" by public opinion. When Mi Fans and Kerosene "diagnose" their own manufacturers, "developing offline channel layout" is always the "medicine lead" on the "prescription".

And these manufacturers are indeed "following the doctor's advice". The fact that mobile phones are encountering obstacles online is happening. Xiaomi, Meizu, Huawei, Hammer, etc. have all written the rapid expansion of offline stores into their strategic deployment for the new year.

Although opening offline stores is a labor-intensive and capital-intensive task for mobile phone manufacturers, online operations are unsustainable not only because sales are difficult to increase, but also because online sales gross profit margins generally differ from offline sales.

In the eyes of Mi fans and kerosene users, the cost-effectiveness of OPPO phones cannot compete with Internet brands such as Xiaomi and Meizu. Once they are blocked in offline channels, they will quickly lose their only current advantage.

Can the so-called OPPO model really lead to success?

"Hiring a spokesperson" and "opening offline stores" are "strategies" that are so simple and crude that it can hardly be called a corporate strategy. However, they are called the "OPPO" model and are considered to be a shortcut to replicating OPPO's success.

However, OPPO, which was imitated last year, has not been surpassed. In the final analysis, such an interpretation of OPPO is like a blind man touching an elephant, and a slight mistake can lead to a huge error.

The success of OPPO R9s should be attributed to the successful portrait of target users within OPPO.

OPPO has always targeted fashionable young people as the main target group for its products. In today's world of excess functions, only young people can still maintain a strong enthusiasm for changing phones and are the main consumer group in the mobile phone market.

OPPO has conducted a detailed and in-depth investigation into their needs. It believes that excellent photographic effects (especially selfies), battery life that does not worry users, and a fashionable appearance design are the biggest demands of young users for smartphones.

In addition, you may find that this is basically the design concept that OPPO has always inherited from the era of feature phones. In other words, users' recognition of OPPO products is not achieved overnight, but the result of OPPO's long-term operation and accumulation. It is a moat built imperceptibly over a long period of time, and it is only in today's special market environment that it begins to shine more brightly.

The launch of R11 brings OPPO one step closer to becoming the king

Yes, the precise positioning and continuous attention to target users make OPPO increasingly powerful.

With the R11, OPPO already has the capital to push the product one big step closer to perfection, and also move the OPPO brand one step closer to the throne.

In 2016, the seeds that OPPO had painstakingly cultivated for many years finally bore fruit. Driven by the astonishing sales volume, we are delighted to see that OPPO has begun to have more say in the upstream and to engage in in-depth cooperation with platform-level manufacturers.

In terms of hardware configuration, the R11 uses an optical sensor customized by OPPO and Sony. The front camera is upgraded to 20 million pixels, and the rear camera uses a dual camera system of 16 million wide-angle + 20 million telephoto. The high-pixel camera combination provides a basic guarantee for the shooting effect.

In addition to the powerful camera, OPPO and Qualcomm have jointly customized and optimized the flagship imaging processor for the R11 - Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP based on the Snapdragon 660 mobile platform. Combined with the IMX398 sensor and f/1.7 large aperture, the R11 has a faster focus speed than the R9s, more realistic picture colors, and more outstanding low-light photography effects.

As for games that young people are interested in, as the official technical partner of Honor of Kings, OPPO has joined forces with the Honor of Kings team and Qualcomm to jointly improve the gaming performance of R11 and bring users a more enjoyable experience.

It can be said that OPPO R11 is a mobile phone product designed for fashionable young people with almost no shortcomings. Moreover, in addition to the product, the growth of the OPPO brand is also eye-catching.

OPPO’s core value is certainly not the channel

Are channels important? Of course, channels are important, but for mobile phone manufacturers, channels are not omnipotent.

To sum up, OPPO’s real killer weapon to defeat Xiaomi and Meizu is actually the OPPO brand that it has maintained for many years.

OPPO has gained user loyalty to the OPPO brand through years of precise advertising placement, accurate analysis of user needs and fine-tuning of products.

In terms of brand retention rate after changing phones, OPPO is only lower than Apple's 45.0% globally, and ranks first in China at 37.8%. This also represents the extremely high satisfaction of users with OPPO phones, which is the result of OPPO's complete ecosystem construction from products to experience to services.

It is these factors that give OPPO excellent brand premium capabilities, rather than offline channels. With such capabilities, Xiaomi and Meizu do not have to waste energy on entering the high-end market, and Huawei does not have to make a fuss about oleophobic layers and memory chips.

While competitors are obsessed with relying on channel construction to counterattack, the outcome of OPPO R11's successful defense of the title seems to be predictable.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.