David vs Goliath: can Chinese smartphone OPPO beat Samsung?

Out of of nowhere a new high-end smartphone appeared. Where other brands spend millions on marketing and announce their new models months ahead, the OPPO Find 5 just made a silent entrance. Despite its quiet nature, the Find 5 already created a lot of buzz;

But who the hell is OPPO? OPPO Digital is a Chinese company based in Dongguan  and they are already known for their high quality Blu-Ray players. Part of their vision is to 'deliver products that speak for themselves', by mostly relying on word-of-mouth. OPPO Digital doesn't even have a dedicated Marketing and Sales department. This vision has certainly proved successful for the Find 5 in China; within hours it was sold out.

Quite impressive if you consider that this particular model had no real marketing and sales strategy. The ultimate example that a good product can still sell itself through word-of-mouth. I think that is really refreshing to see in a world of mass marketing.

But would this strategy be able to bring the same success in Europe? Would they be able to compete with, for instance, Samsung? This would probably be a difficult task because, although on paper the Find 5 beats all the other high-end smart phones, there are some important downsides when you look past the phone itself.

First of all, for most people it's important to see and touch a phone in real life before buying it. Especially when a brand is unknown and new.  Now this is where it gets complicated because OPPO is not being offered in any store in Europe at the moment. So there is no chance to get familiar with the product besides online information. This way they are really limiting their market because only a small part of the smartphone users are adventures enough to buy a product based on digital information only. 

The next problem would be service and trust. Although the Find 5 is cheaper than its competitors, it's still an expensive product and customers would need a certain amount of service with it. Without any store-backing up the brand there would be no direct service. A major retailer selling and backing-up Oppo will increase Oppo's service level and also trustworthiness of the brand allot and this is a real miss at the moment.

Now the previous mentioned points are mainly carried from the traditional marketing and sales point of view. And I do believe that in the future, and even now, there are other ways of reassuring buyers . For instance the product/brand can get known through (video) reviews, forums and social media. Support can be offered in a online forum that's available for everyone.

Now the above points will be no problem for the younger, tech-smart generation, who are more likely to trust these new forms of customer service and marketing.
But to be a mature product that wants to be bought by a broad audience, like Samsung achieved, OPPO would need the support of phone retailers to let their brand grow. This way it might be able to offer the service level that the other big brands can offer.

The OPPO Find 5 seems a good product but to go beyond the tech-freaks and early adapters, it would need to have support of retailers that can help build the brand and give the Find 5 the attention it deserves.