Hyper Racetrack | OPPO Building a "Park"?

Author: Zhou Yuan / Wall Street News

The smartphone industry is facing a brand new change. In addition to the functional changes brought by AI, it also includes channel reforms.

OPPO's channel strength has long been outstanding in the industry, and now it is quietly advancing its channel strategy iteration. On September 26, OPPO announced in Guiyang that the largest flagship store in the country landed at Guiyang MixC.

This is a new flagship store opened by OPPO following the upgrade of the flagship store at Grandview Mall in Guangzhou in July last year. Different from the upgrade and transformation of the Grandview store, this time in the landmark shopping mall MixC in Guiyang, OPPO cooperated with China Resources to create a brand new two-story street-facing store with an area of over 1000 square meters. The front facade alone is made of special materials weighing up to 30 tons.

Wall Street News noted that with the flagship store at Guiyang MixC, OPPO proposed to build a "city park for young people", with spacious leisure tables, cafes, game live viewing spaces, and art installations that can be checked in, essentially bringing a small "park" into the smartphone flagship store.

These are not sudden whims of OPPO. Li Jie, Vice President of OPPO China, told Wall Street News, "After the upgrade of the Grandview flagship store in Guangzhou, the average monthly sales exceeded 4.5 million, reaching half a billion in a year, with annual sales of 50 million. Even many luxury international brands find it difficult to achieve this volume."

From the once popular "mobile phone street" in 2014 to the flagship stores in high-end business districts today, OPPO seems to be exploring a new round of smartphone sales store formats.

Close to Young People

"Where users spend their time, that's where OPPO's stores should be." said Liu Bo, President of OPPO China. Whether it is the upgraded Grandview flagship store in Guangzhou in June 2023, or the MixC flagship store in Guiyang, which will officially open on October 1st, Liu Bo explained that they are practicing the value orientation of offline channels close to young people.

Li Jie, Vice President of OPPO China, added a set of data: 700 million people in China regularly visit shopping malls, and there are over 6000 shopping malls in China. "In the past, mobile phones were not sold in malls, but now the situation has changed," Li Jie said.

By observing the preferences of young people, listening to their needs, improving user insight capabilities, serving users more efficiently, gaining a competitive advantage, and ultimately achieving "those who win over young people win the world."

By setting up a collection of humanistic homes and locally distinctive cultural elements in places where young people gather, such as shopping malls, OPPO's strategic investment is shown, not limited to just the products themselves, but also the interaction and dialogue space with the target user group - offline stores.

The environmental design of the flagship store at MixC in Guiyang fully considers customer flow. OPPO has incorporated various elements similar to a city park, such as interactive leisure spaces like the game experience area and Little O School, the latter of which integrates traditional cultural elements of Guizhou.

The overall design inspiration of "Little O School" comes from the terraces unique to Guizhou, with the recessed part extending downward in the form of terraces, combined with stairs designed with Guizhou wood grain stone

How to reflect the leisure attributes of urban space? OPPO designed a coffee bar in the flagship store of Wanxiang City in Guiyang, offering drinks with distinctive local characteristics. OPPO members can enjoy them at half price, and even the coffee and drinks have the taste of the beloved herb "Zhe Er Gen" by people in Guizhou and Sichuan. Liu Bo said, "We pay great attention to the user experience and the real experience of users interacting with the brand."

Wang Jiping, Vice President of IDC China, believes that the market breakthrough of terminals often comes from real scenarios.

Liu Bo believes that the youth represents the trend culture, while the city is the main carrier of local traditional culture. In the process of collision between the two, combined with OPPO's long-term cultivation in the gaming and imaging fields, they can jointly build a uniquely charming theme park for young people.

The theme of gaming runs through the entire flagship store atmosphere, not only in the store design process, but also in the creation of the gaming experience area. In addition, OPPO has just announced its official partnership with the global finals of "League of Legends" S14. In the flagship store of Wanxiang City in Guiyang, OPPO has set up a viewing area to broadcast the live broadcast of the "League of Legends" S14 global finals in real time.

Enter the hearts of young people and be their intimate friends. This approach may seem ordinary, but OPPO dares to explore, invest, and truly implement it in the store.

The new store closely follows the design elements of "Guiyang" regional cultural colors, displaying the shapes of Jiaxiu Tower and Fanjing Mountain in Guiyang. On the second floor of the flagship store, there is a wall with green plants as the base, outlining the combination of the two characters "Guiyang". This design is particularly in line with the needs of online celebrities for check-ins.

Change is not just a form

Through communication with Liu Bo, President of OPPO China, it can be known that the change in store form is part of a series of reforms led by OPPO's ideology of "going to the front line and getting close to users".

The real protagonist of the store is the various series of OPPO products, which carry various insights into user needs to participate in the increasingly fierce market competition, including AI phones, foldable N series, the drop-resistant A series, as well as the OnePlus series phones under OPPO's brand, and various IoT products.

The market changes rapidly, bringing uncertainty to every player. Apple, which has always been leading the way in the Chinese market, seems to be less glorious with its latest iPhone 16 series, with reduced sales compared to previous new product seasons.

Therefore, domestic mobile phone manufacturers must adapt to the times and innovate continuously.

OPPO is promoting the comprehensive landing of functional flagship stores, which belongs to the overall dimension of the full-chain commercial strategy, and is also a new perspective to observe the new changes in the smartphone industry. Offline channels, as nodes of the commercial path, belong to the front end and are the forefront for reaching the target user group Through this cutting-edge offline interaction with users, in the sensory atmosphere formed by store design, materials, and functional areas, users can feel OPPO's attention to and satisfaction of their spiritual and material needs; coupled with unique product technology attributes such as AI, imaging, and gaming, combined with various real scenarios organically integrated in flagship stores, users can intuitively experience the new feelings and values brought by new technology.

"At the press conference, we demonstrate various new experiences brought by AI technology in games, photography, or office work. To be honest, end users find it difficult to intuitively feel it," Liu Bo told Wall Street News. "The functional scenario areas in flagship stores can authentically recreate users' real scenarios at work, travel, and leisure. In these scenarios, our technology and product features can truly bring users a 'intuitive' experience."

The "intuitive experience" mentioned by Liu Bo cannot be achieved in the same way at product function demonstration sessions during press conferences or by watching videos online as it can in the functional areas of flagship stores.

Therefore, the understanding and practice mentioned above can be seen as a new adjustment that OPPO is quietly making: first insight, followed by technological research and development, integration into products to meet user needs, then observing feedback, thus forming a positive cycle. Liu Bo summarized this as the reason behind OPPO's achievement of being the market leader in market share for nearly a decade.

Regarding the hot trend of AI, Wall Street News learned that the upcoming OPPO annual flagship in late October, the OPPO Find X8 series, will introduce a series of new technologies and AI applications. In addition, this high-end flagship of this generation will have ultra-narrow bezels similar to the iPhone 16 series. Only Apple and OPPO globally can achieve such narrow bezels.

Moreover, the OPPO Find X8 series will also introduce highly innovative AI applications. Liu Bo said, "Previously, our AI elimination feature had a usage frequency of up to 15 times per day. I believe that the new AI features to be introduced in OPPO Find X8 will have an even higher usage frequency."

Although OPPO's opening of the largest flagship store in Guiyang may seem like a regular business move, it actually reflects many new adjustments in the mobile phone industry.

In the future, what kind of impact will these adjustments bring to the market? Time will provide the answer