Chinese mobile juggernaut OPPO continues its push into the Australian market, with it’s signing of a national retail agreement with Officeworks. Not content with becoming the largest mobile manufacturer in China, and having more than 22% market share, OPPO clearly wants to make further inroads to the Australian market, and with great products, it’s not hard to see their continued success.
The partnership with Officeworks will see OPPO’s popular smartphones, including the F1s, R9 and R9 Plus on shelves across the nation, making the company’s products even more accessible to the average consumer.
OPPO’s Michael Tran had this to say on the announcement:
“Officeworks is one of Australia’s most respected retailers, so we’re delighted to be working with them. We’re still a relatively young player in the Australian market, so it just goes to show there is real appetite among consumers for our premium yet affordable smartphones.
The feedback we’ve received shows when Aussies experience our products, they fall in love with them. Officeworks will enable us to get our products into the hands of more consumers nationwide, helping to improve brand awareness and increase sales.”
With more than 160 Officeworks stores across the country to carry OPPO devices, there’s a big increase in the number of eyeballs that will be on product, and undoubtedly, OPPO is excited about this development.
OPPO’s smartphones will be available to buy outright, in store and online, from November 7. Pricing for some of the more popular models includes $348 for the F1s, $549 for the R9 and $629 for the R9 Plus.
Analysis
One of the biggest hurdles to getting phones in hands is brand recognition, and getting people to actually see your wares. OPPO have already got past the first bit — there are a good number of people, just the everyday person on the street, who know that OPPO is a mobile phone brand. Unlike some other brands, the name is easy to pronounce, too, which helps here.
Getting OPPO phones in Officeworks stores, when they’re already in JB HiFi and other retailers, gives the Chinese company 160 more stores where its products can be seen, touched, used and sold. Undoubtedly a good move.
This is the strategy that has got OPPO in more hands than any other brand in China; having their product in stores all over the place. While that strategy suits the Chinese market, there is merit to it here in Australia too. While many are happy to buy products without going hands-on, there’s still a significant portion of the market which is more cautious, which prefers to try things, feel them, and see how they look and work before spending cash.
With affordable phones, this is undoubtedly the market OPPO wants to seize, and it’s doing exactly the right thing to get them.
Yes, I agree. The R9 Plus still has dropout issues with Telstra, 4 months after I alerted them. Will never buy again.
Oppo phones have great hardware for the price, but the software is meh and for a new company trying to expand in Australia their warranty service is hopeless, even for obvious phone faults like dropping calls in a high signal area, where it was clearly the handset at fault.
I can see that the low price comes with a low warranty, but I was still surprised at Oppo Australia’s cavalier attitude to serious phone issues.