November 5, 2025 • 33 mins
Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is making an assertive play to shake up the $1.3 billion smartphone market in New Zealand, aiming to disrupt the long-standing duopoly of Samsung and Apple with a mix of tech innovation and brand-building efforts.
In this week’s episode of The Business of Tech podcast, Oppo New Zealand Managing Director Morgan Halim shares insights on how the challenger brand, which claims around 10% of the local market, is reimagining what Kiwi consumers can expect from their devices.
Taking on a cosy duopoly
“We started about seven years ago, and we knew there was a gap in the market when there were only two players in New Zealand,” Halim told me.
“Over time, we just built that brand awareness. That helped us in terms of people getting to know who we are, and slowly, they… understand and see our point of difference in the market,” he said.
Halim is candid about the challenge of breaking entrenched brand loyalty, particularly among Apple devotees wary of switching from iOS to Android.
“That’s the tough thing to crack, isn’t it? So building that brand loyalty and just awareness of it, it took a while for Oppo,” he noted.
Embedding in local culture
The Shenzhen-based smartphone maker’s approach has not just been about technology but embedding the brand into Kiwi life. Halim highlighted major sports partnerships, especially via football sponsorships, as important to raising brand awareness.
“From day one in New Zealand, [our strategy has been] how do we show the customer we are a global company, but also local? Wellington Phoenix is a good example. They have been a great partner for us to have that resonance closer to the New Zealand customer.”
Oppo’s association with New Zealand football was extended in September when it signed a two-year agreement to become the official smartphone and smart device partner of the All Whites and the Ford Football Ferns.
Innovation at every price point
Oppo’s handset range stretches from entry-level A-series smartphones, through the Reno series, to its flagship Find X9 Pro, which was launched in Barcelona last month, and which Halim says exemplifies Oppo’s drive to push boundaries.
“What is Find X for us? We focus on display quality, charging speed and camera innovation. And we partner up with Hasselblad, positioning the Find X as the premium photography tool,” he said.
One of the Find X9 Pro’s standout features is its formidable battery life, made possible by cutting-edge chipset and battery tech.
“We put a 7500 mAh (milliamp hour) battery on the Find X9 Pro, and it's probably one of the biggest batteries out there in the New Zealand market. If you’re a power user, it will last you a day – that’s guaranteed for sure. If you’re not a power user… we can see that extended more than a day or longer.”
A thoughtful approach to AI
Oppo is betting big on AI, not as a gimmick, but as a core part of the user experience.
“About two years ago, we knew that AI was coming. [We’ve] come up with three major domains: AI productivity, AI creativity, and AI imaging… but the idea is, how do we move from a single AI feature to a system-level approach where it’s more than AI woven into the experience,” Halim explained.
A key new feature debuting in the Find X9 series is AI Mindspace, which with the press of the “snap” button on the side of the phone or swipe of the screen, the contents displayed on the screen will be analysed by AI, a record and summary of the contents kept for quick access. For more intensive productivity tasks, Oppo has partnered with Google Gemini for AI capabilities.
Oppo’s focus is on the mobile ecosystem and openness,” Halim says.
“Rather than trying to have a closed ecosystem...our headphones, whether you are using Android devices from different brands or an iPhone, you can use the full functions. We’re doing the same with our wearables as well, whatever ecosystem you’re using.”
The long game
Halim is optimistic about the future, despite lingering retail headwinds in 2025.
“We had an amazing Q1 with double-digit growth year on year, but Q2 and Q3...those buffers slowly disappeared.
“Consumer confidence is still pretty low at the moment, [though] there’s action happening, and you will see income a little more available. So yeah, I’m still quite hopeful for Q4, especially Black Friday and Christmas.”
Listen to the full conversation with Morgan Ha
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Business of Tech powered by two Degrees Business.
I'm Peter Griffin. If you've shopped for a new phone lately,
you've probably noticed that the options for buying one are
well a bit limited When it comes to brands, Apple
and Samsung claim roughly eighty percent of the market between them.
If you're an Apple fan, you probably won't go past
(00:24):
the new iPhone seventeen lineup anyway. Chinese brand Oppo has
around eleven percent of the market overall and is steadily growing. Then,
Android uses are faced with a handful of smartphone brands
like Motorola, HMD which used to be Nockier, and gell Me,
another Chinese brand, but they only claim low single digit
(00:45):
slices of the pie each. The top three brands do
have extensive ranges, from the high end flagship phones to
entry level handsets, but it's not really like the PC market,
where you have a much larger range of brands vying
for position. Oppo is the real emerging challenger here in
New Zealand and internationally. Last year, IDC ranked it fourth
(01:09):
for global smartphone shipments, eight point eight percent of the market,
with one hundred and three million phones shipped. The consumer
electronics company based in chen Ji in China, started out
in the early two thousand selling Blu ray players and
MP three players, but it is now the biggest smartphone
maker in China. I've been to it's vast chen Jin
factory where tens of thousands of phones roll off the
(01:30):
conveyor belts every day, and last week I was lucky
enough to be in Barcelona for the launch of OPO's
new flagship Find x nine and Find x nine Pro smartphones.
These are the top of the range phones, going up
against the Samsung Galaxy S twenty five and S twenty
five Ultra, and I guess, to some extent, the flagship
(01:51):
iPhones if people can be persuaded to move from Apple.
My first look review of the Fine X nine Pro,
which sell for nearly two and a half thousand dollars,
that's sort of what you're paying now across the board
for these flagship phones. I suggested that this is the
moment where Oppo has really come of age, moving beyond
experimentation and novelty value to really take on Samsung and
(02:16):
Apple feature for feature, actually putting more memory and more
features into the phones. In some cases, at first glance,
the new Finance devices could be mistaken for iPhones design wise,
but they have really impressive cameras, some clever artificial intelligence integration,
and the biggest battery currently in a flagship smartphone, offering
(02:39):
around two days of usage between charges with regular use.
This is Oppo showing it's serious about making a dent
in the market, eager to break that cozy duopoly of
Apple and Samsung, who divide the lion's share of the
one point three billion market between them. So this week,
on the back of the Fine x nine launch, I
talked to Morgan Helene, the managing director of Opo New Zealand,
(03:02):
about how the company is trying to build real trust
with Kiwi consumers, not just through flashy specs, but with service,
reliability and design that competes head to head with the
big two. We also dig into that new flagship phone,
the Find x nine pro, and what it says about
Oppo's ambition to become a household name. Here's Oppo's Morgan Helene.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Morgan, Welcome to the business of tech. How are you
doing very good? Thank you very much, great to see you.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
You've just launched in Barcelona, the Opo Find X NINEUS
is your flagship device. And really, you know, it's an
interesting time for OPO in the New Zealand market. You're
sort of growing. You're a disruptive brand. I think you
could be described as in New Zealand. For as long
as I've been covering smartphones and the mobile market in
(03:59):
New Zealand, and it's really been Apple and Samsung dominating
the market. And I think people, particularly Apple bands, they're
not going to really go anywhere. It's really hard to
get him into Android, although I'm constantly trying with my
friends because I'm not a not an owned fan, and
then most people go to Samsung.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
But we have had in the last decade.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
First we had Huawei, which did some great hand skits,
unfortunately isn't really a player in.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
The market here anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
And we've just seen a gradual rise off OPO in
the market as well. So I mean it's really sort
of becoming a mainstream choice now, isn't it. I mean
a lot of people I know are you know, naturally
going for OPO handsets when before they probably would have
been Samsung users.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean like it's a long time journey
that we have. Obviously we were started in about seven
years ago, and we knew there's a gap in the
market when there's only two players in his own market,
and I think there's opportunity for a third brand. And
it's just good for us actually to be coming into
(05:03):
a new kind of region but also to be able
to just provide option to consumer in New Zealand obviously,
and just over time we just built that brand awareness
and then obviously that helped us a little bit into
soft people getting to know who we are and slowly
they can then understand and can see output of difference
in the market.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Basically, Yeah, that's that's the tough thing to crack, isn't it.
There's brand loyalty, so building that brand loyalty and just
the awareness of it, and I think that took a
while for OPA really to get that brand awareness, and
then you did things like you've you've obviously been a
big supporter of football and in New Zealand with the
Phoenix and the All Whites now as well, you've just
(05:46):
signed a two year partnership and that is a strategy
I think for OPO and other parts of the world
as well. You've got a really strong relationship with football
and with FIFA and the like. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Absolutely. Look, I think football itself is around the community, right.
I mean there's a lot of community events that we
actually part of us and as part of our strategy
course strategy be a bit more part of that. However,
I think the biggest high level reason why we want
to do it is around our strategy from day one
in New Zealand is how do we show the customer
(06:19):
in New Zealand that we are a global company, but
we're also local, not just from the operation point of view,
but how do we embed our brand to be a
little bit more resonate with the local customer. And I
think you know, one of them, Phoinix is a good
example there being the only football team in them ends
at for a long time in a leak competitions. Uh
(06:41):
And it is kind of like in directly representing New
Zealand only until recently oupland f C obviously came in
and they have been a great partner for us to
st having that resonate closer to the New Zealand customer.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
It's great and it's great to see Auckland in there
and you know, in first season doing phenomenally well. So
that's there's definitely a buzz developing around around football and
New Zealand, which is fantastic in terms of your market strategy.
You obviously have handsets that span the entire sort of
range from entry level up to the high end, which
(07:17):
is the you know, the Find X series, You've got
smart watches, you've got tablets. I've just been looking at
your new Android based tablet. You know, what's your strategy,
particularly at a time when the economy is tough in
in New Zealand. You know, you are you seeing people
looking for more if the off your like the Reno range,
(07:38):
you know, more of the value sort of handsets at
the moment, or is there still that appetite for for
high end devices?
Speaker 4 (07:44):
New Zealand is actually an interesting market. I mean I
think I may have spoken to you about this before.
I mean the shape of the price point by volume,
it's actually it's shaped like an hour glass. We sell
all lot in the high end, a lot of key.
We consumer love the best of the best, but also
(08:06):
that is one part of the market that say, look,
I can't afford it, then there will go in the
five hundred dollars and under what we're seeing though in
the last couple of years. That is a slowly there's
a shift of that premium slowly, but surely it's going
down to more at mid range and that's where the
Reno is for us. Reno for us is not so
(08:29):
much around the volume and such, but it's about just
the bridge between our A series which is the entry
and met to bridge then for the next step for
whoever from the A series to the Reno and then
hopefully would like them go to the premium where the
majority of the volume is in the New Zealand market.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So yeah, they're well established now, the fine X and
A Reno models.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
People know them.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You've done over the years some really good innovation, particularly
around fast charging super charging. I think Oppo was a
pioneer and that that sort of standard now, but a
few years back getting half of your battery life topped
up in a matter of ten minutes or something like
that was actually a breakthrough on the cameras as well.
(09:16):
That there's been a lot of innovation. Maybe talk us
through what you think with this fine X nine coming out.
It comes after Apple's launched its phones for the year Samsung,
so you sort of get the final say for the
year in terms of innovation, what are the things that
really stick out for you when you look at the
fine X nine it's just been launched in Barcelona in
(09:37):
terms of new features or functionality.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Probably I will start with just like giving a little
context obviously, what is fine X for us for a
long time?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (09:46):
I mean, I know when you say it fine X,
it sounds like a little bit like by Discovery. It's
the way you say like fine next. You know what
is what's the next thing? Basically, And that's pretty much
what the series is all about. It's always hard do
we push boundaries in design, innovation and et cetera. And actually,
my first device that I launched with Opoh when I
(10:08):
first joined was the first fine X and I still
remember it has this I don't know if you remember.
It has this crazy motorized camera system.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And the whole polarizing wasn't it? It was?
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Yeah, And the whole front of the phone was just screen, right,
and it's like no not no punch hole and just
pure display basically, And I guess that's why fin X
was it. We're just trying to say we're not afraid
to try something. But over time that has evolved a
little bit you can see from the fin X two,
fin X three and finex five. We just moved from
(10:43):
something from flashy kind of experiments to a little bit
more refined technology. And you know, we focus on like
you said, display quality, the charging speed, and camera innovation.
And we pinte it up with Hassle Blood obviously positioning
the finance as more like the prem in photography tool.
And again, now it's not just about SPACs, but there's
(11:04):
just a clear direction that how do we want to
use technology and also art basically, and we just want
to make you how can we make it more human
centbject design. It means like it should be feel like
a natural thing to have in your hand rather than
just hey, this is the best backbone in the in
the world. Basically, I think Phini's nine the flagship itself.
(11:27):
The chip set, we're going to be one of the
first in the world to puner up with media attack
with their ninety five hundred chip set. And what's special
about it is three nanometers, So what it means is
it's going to be super powerful, but it's power efficient.
And again we're trying to address a lot of the
issue we have daily that I'm pretty sure you ran
(11:48):
out of your battery a couple of times. Being a power.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
User, Yeah, I usually get just into the red sort
of in the evening most except when I'm traveling and
I'm using a lot. I was in San Francisco a
couple of weeks ago and I was almost not able
to order an uber because I've been using. I've been
out and about all days. So that is becoming, i
(12:11):
think a bit of an issue for people. They really
do want at least a day of battery life, right,
hopefully a day and a half at least.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Absolutely, and that's why we now with the fish and chipset,
we top it up and I know you hear it
for us here. Basically with the silicon battery technology is
getting better and better. We put a seven five hundred
million battery on the Finance nine prove and it's probably
(12:39):
one of the biggest battery out there in the New
Zealand market. Basically it's huge. Yeah, and depending on the
usage case. Obviously, if you're a power user, it will
last you a day, that's guarantee for sure. And if
you're not a power user, I'm just hoping that we
can see that extended more than a day or longer.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That's great, good battery life. In terms of that relationship
with hassled Lad on the cameras, anything exciting new there.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yeah, absolutely so we actually this time around the partnership
has extended a little bit. Originally we actually partner them
on just in the color tuning and imaging experience. This
time around is a step further. We actually also work
with them with the actual lens itself, where they help
us to make sure that is the right setup and
(13:30):
the right material to be able to produce to the
best image that are close to what Hassablood camera can produce. Basically,
that's one part of it on the phone, and this
time around we also introduce a little kit accessories for
hassle Blood lens so that customer who would like to
try it, they can actually get this particular system to
(13:54):
make the camera experience even closer to a proper digital
cameras a lotasically.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
So you're sort of targeting sort of real digital photography
enthusiasts who want to take it a little step further,
maybe if they're getting landscape photography or doing videography or
something like that, actually sort of elevating it into almost
like a semi pro sort of experience.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean there's a lot of those things
that we put in the camera and I think you
will see it from the launch events. Is that we're
just trying to again all the time every year, how
do we continue to get closer to some of the
professional gears and you know there's still a gap, but
will continue to find ways to make it easier for
(14:39):
everyone to have the same high quality experience that will
have on just a pure photography or videography PRODUCTI Bistically.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
All of the phones really over the last couple of
years have featured artificial intelligence in one capacity or other.
Some of them have their own AIS systems, some of
them are incorporating Gemini and others integrating them into the
operating system in quite a compelling way.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
What's OPO's approach to AI for us?
Speaker 4 (15:10):
It's actually and one thing I love about OPO is like,
actually about two years ago they're knew that AI is coming,
and then they come together and understanding, Okay, where is
OPO would like to go direction wise with AI? So
they come up with three things. There's three major domains
that they're really focused on. One is AI productivity, So
(15:30):
it features that help user to get things done more easily.
So for example, the summarization, the search, the calls, and
the second domain is the AI creativity, so just enabling
user to express themselves. So into some image video editing,
avatar if you're into that, and generative tools. And the
last one is around AI emerging. You know, how do
(15:53):
we take advantage of the camera that we have, the
sensor that we have, then processing it to deliver better photos, video,
or better zoom in or even low light performance. But
the idea is that how do we move from a
single AI features And this is what we see a
lot and even from ourselves at the start, but everyone
(16:13):
else in the market is how do we move from
that single AI feature to more system level approach where
it's more than ai've woven into the experience.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Basically, you know, we've seen you know, Apple was going
full steam ahead of Apple Intelligence have had to sort
of dial things back because you know, the the expectation
and the reality there was a gap there, you know
saw you know, Samsung this year they were sort of
looking at trying to integrate different features using AI, for
(16:42):
instance in a text message to pull in some some
mapping information, maybe some directions, maybe some restaurant recommendations. So,
as you say, trying to get beyond one single AI
feature and integrate all of these things, it's tricky on
the mobile operating system to really pull that off. You've
got limited screen real estate. You've got to reach into
(17:05):
different applications to get the information that you need, whether
it be something from your email, if you're in messaging
or in the text interface. It's getting better, but it's
quite a big challenge to overcome.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, you got it right there, and I think that's
why we always say, you have to go back to
the basic verst of understanding. If we want to achieve
all of those things, what are the background bits that
has to come right? So that's why actually we talk
about end to an ecosystem with open products, like making
(17:40):
sure that we work with the chipset itself, the manufacturer
device itself, and but also cloud basically, so we're making
sure that it covers the ship processing, which is on
device processing, and then how do we use the cloud
infrastructure as well, So for example, we partner with Media
Attack Obviously, how do we optimize hardware for real time
(18:02):
AI processing? So it's effission and also powerful. But also
how do we partner with our clouds of a provider
on do all the hard computing or edge computing that
we needed something quickly or bigger processing.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Basically, I think we are going to see in the
next couple of years. You know, you've got the likes
of open Ai doing their venture with Johnny Ives, the
former Apple designer iPhone designer. They've got some device in
(18:36):
the work. So I think we're going to see a
morphing of formats. It seems like we've almost reached sort
of peak smartphone. Every just about every innovation we can
squeeze out of the format we've done, thinner screens, lighter devices, foldables,
which has been into as well, has some nice foldable
(18:57):
devices out there which are getting better and better all
the time. It's sort of like, yeah, what's the next innovation?
The industry seems to be looking to smart glasses and wearables,
and I'm sure you guys are as well.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Yeah, I think I think that's the that's the fun stuff, right,
it's actually without telling too much what's next and telling
you what is in our portfolio as well. But again,
you know, I think while the physical form of mobile
phones has picked like you say, but there's still a
lot of improvement that it can be made. No matter
what if you if you think about it, you still
(19:33):
have some type of screen to be able to process
the information. Right, that's still physical barrier that we can
push even further if we want to on weight, on
slimness to give you example. Right, we haven't gone into
this yet, but a lot of a processing at the
moment happened at the phone because of the chip set
and chip set require bigger battery or strong battery and
(19:54):
et cetera. But imagine in the future where you know
you have in good enough wireless data around you, what
there's sixty seven G whatever it is in the future,
and just have everything compute in the cloud. You can
just have a screen basically on your hand with a
little bit of battery that can run everything without having
the weight of the current phone that you have. That
(20:15):
could be one of the things that you can imagine
they could happen.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, and look for all the talk of smart glasses,
we've seen the ray band relationship with Meta that's been
out there several years. The ones they just released look
a lot more advanced, but consumer uptake on these sort
of non conventional formats is still quite limited, and even
on foldables because they know fold the Galaxy fold for
(20:38):
its and sets a three and a half thousand dollars device.
So when it comes down to it, the bulk of
the market having a screen, high resolution, beautiful looking screen
you can watch videos on, you can be productive on,
and will last you through the day. That's still really
the sweet spot for the mobile industry. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, looking.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Forward a little bit, what's the you know, what's the
market like? I think you have something like around about
ten percent of the market in New Zealand, which is
which is pretty good after you know, a relatively short
amount of time in the market here. What really drives
the dynamic in New Zealand is it, for instance, the
carrier relationship. That is that a real key deciding factor
(21:21):
in what sort of hand set a consumer buys in
New Zealand. That relationship with the likes of one in
z Spark in two.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Degrees does operateor definitely play a part on the success
or having a brand to be successful, obviously having the
endorsement or the support from the operator. It's kind of
cement the eligibility of the products. Basically, it's that people
understand that, oh, if this operator arranged them, this product
(21:51):
must be trustworthy, it must be been tested into the
network and et cetera. So it is definitely, but I
think the biggest one that really move the dial into
soft market presence market awareness it still is, is the
brand awareness and the brand trusts. And that's why we
(22:11):
had to change our strategy from when we first came
into new zone where we straight away went into mid
to high range because again, like we talked about, that's
not where the volume is. We need to build trusts
and the only way to build trust is actually how
do we get more prophones into people hands. They try it,
their belief in it, they trust the quality of it,
(22:33):
and then slowly they then upgrade into the mid range
and then after that upgrade to the premium range as well.
And that's why we've been just slowly while the marketing
part we built brand awareness with the sponsorship, we're marketing
our brand, who we are, what we do. We also
focus a lot making sure that a series is a
(22:56):
strong product range for us basically, and you can see
recently we focus on around a lot or on durability,
and we knew that it's not just put off our
sustainability strategy just to make sure how do we make
sure phones last longer? And key we loft at as well,
you know, because Kiwis have to drop a lot of
their phones all the time, and it helps us to
(23:18):
kind of build and sumend that trust all the time.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah, a lot of Kis may not sort of realize
just what a big operation OPO is in China. I've
been to the factories and change in you know, huge operations,
sophisticated operations, and China is a powerhouse in mobile development now.
And thankfully you don't run into any geopolitical issues, you know,
(23:43):
selling your phones here. You're not a mobile network equipment
maker like Huawei was, so you avoid that and avoid
the tariff issues as well, because.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You're sending phones from China directly to New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Yes, and no, I think one thing that again, OPO.
That always surprised me, but it you know, we they're
always kind of talk about, Hey, I know we came
from China, we're beast in China, but you don't forget
we are a global company. So even during the COVID
time or during the tough time, right. Even our supply
(24:20):
chain strategy, it makes sense as a global company, so
we just don't have manufacturing in China, but we actually
have manufacturing in the country where it is max sense.
So for example, we have manufacturing in India, we have
manufacturing in Indonesia. It shows, like I said, that glocal
approach with global company, but we're also very local basically,
(24:42):
and it's kind of helped us to be a little
bit more agile where when the accumum factors is affecting
everybody else.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
The phone is the flagship business. But you know I
mentioned the smart watchers and tablets. What's your strategy in
those areas and are you seeing growing appetite. A lot
of keys now are into smart watches. They want to
track their their health and that sort of thing, and
the smart watches are getting more sophisticated in what they
can track. Are you seeing decent growth in those categories?
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Funny enough, we just actually look into it and to
solve the market data. It is probably one of the
only category in the durable tech that are still growing
this year, and that is a little bit more increase
in the uptake. It's a positive outlook. We have a
great product in the wearable. You know, one of the
things that we do is again battery life has always
(25:31):
been the gripe with wearable, but with the Watch X
recently or the Watch X too, we implemented the two
chipset kind of system. And what it does is that
when you don't use the smart function, we run the
more low power chip set and allow you to still
see messages, look at the time, and do minus tasks
(25:53):
and your battery will lust three to four days basically.
And again that actually quite a differentiation have the market.
And one thing that I love about op approach as
well is inclusiveness rather than trying to have a close ecosystem.
Just to give example, our headphones, you know, it doesn't
matter if you were using an Android devices from different
(26:15):
brands or using the fruit phone, you can actually use
the full function of the headphones, whether it's the noise
canceling control, also the volume control, all the same as
you would use it in OPO products. And we're doing
the same with our wearable as well, where whatever ecosystem
you're using, operating system you're using, you can't use them.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, and Androids still still such a good platform for
all the smartphone operators, color Oasis, your version of your
building on Android. And what I like about what you
guys do is you keep it relatively light installation of Android.
You're not trying to put on a lot of bloat
(26:57):
where it's actually quite a reasonable experience.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Anything with this upgrade, what version of Android are we
on now?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
So this one will have the latest one? So we
have the Androids sixteen six launch.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, anything particularly about sixteen that's notable.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I've been testing it obviously, And one thing that are
like the best is probably a new feature called AI
mind Space. So it's a new thing that we were
introduced and with this particular lounch. So it's like a
smart assistant style feature of capturing, organizing, and retrieving information
(27:35):
within your phone. So I think, for example, I asked you, like,
how many screenshot do you have currently in your phone?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Oh? Thousands?
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Yeah? Yeah, And this is what we're trying to solve
basically again with AI. How do we woven that experience
into your daily life. So if you have something on screen, right,
you could actually take a screenshot of whether it's a promotion,
it's a node, it's a concert time, then you can
trigger kind of like a safe gesture and is captured
by distinct mind space and once the capture, it can
(28:05):
be analyzed by AI and identify the key elements such
as dates, your location, or keywords contact, and then it
will suggest actions. So it's a hey, would you like
to add this calendar event to this particular concert? And
if you say yes, then it will then directly again
connected to your whether your Gmail, what are your artlook,
(28:27):
whatever it is, and it will create the calendar event
for you. And the safe content also become kind of
searchable via the phone as well, so you can rather
than you go scroll over your screenshot, you can just type, hey,
can you tell me which screenshot that about a vestival
or about the concert, and it will pull the relevant
(28:48):
items for you.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
I'm taking screen grabs all the time off tickets or
receipts or whatever, and then I'm constantly scrolling through thousands
of photos and you know, it's time consuming. So if
it can extract that information you create a calendar entry
or a note or something like that, that would be awesome.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
And the possibility is kind of be massive, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
So, Morgan, we're rapidly approaching the end of the year.
That's the big selling season when it comes to consumer electronics,
how are you feeling going into sort of the Black
Friday and that sort of period from early December on
through to the Boxing Day sales and New Year sales.
It has been a tough year for retail. But talking
(29:32):
to other companies, they seem to think that we're sort
of turning a bit of a corner. They're they're sort
of optimistic about the Christmas sales season.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
You got to have to write, I mean like we,
like you said, everyone feeling it a bit tough this year.
We had an amazing Q one where we're a double
digit growth on you, but then it comes Q two
and Q three endorse kind of buffer slowly disappear. But
you know, I think you see from the economy point
of view, consumer confidence is still pretty low at the moment,
(30:05):
but the government are doing everything they can to try
to reduce that pain by reducing all cr and stuff
like that, and I think that's where the positive come from.
There's action happening, and you will see this possible income
will be a little bit more available and hopefully sooner
than later. So yeah, I'm still quite hopeful for Q four,
especially Black Friday and Christmas. But like I say, we
(30:30):
when we see big brand like Apple started the scout,
you know that it's a tough time.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, it is definitely, yeah, but hey, look you've got
a new flagship phone on the market, well in time
for Christmas, so that's exciting. And yeah, lots of innovation
to come. So good luck for the sales season and
for the fine Next nine launch. And thanks so much
for coming on the Business of Tech, Thank you for
(30:57):
having me.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Thanks to Morgan Helene from OPO for coming on. It's
fascinating to see how brands like OPO are moving beyond
the challenge of phase, focusing less on price and more
on building long term credibility in a crowded market. We
saw this a few years back with another Chinese challenge
of brand, Huawei, which made a very impressive range of
flagship phones such as the P twenty, the P thirty,
(31:30):
P sixty, but it was basically killed in Western countries
because its parent company also makes mobile network equipment base
stations for four G and five G networks. For instance,
our government and others considered that a national security risk,
so Huawei was excluded from building five G networks here.
US restrictions of Huawei phones accessing the Google play Store
(31:54):
effectively wiped out its handset business outside of China too.
Why would you buy a phone if you can't use
the core Google apps and download apps from the play Store.
So Huawei is no longer selling phones here. Oppo, however,
it never ran into the same problem. It's clear through
partnerships with Hasselblad on camera development, Chinese chip maker Media Tech,
(32:17):
and its own expertise in battery and fast charging development,
that OPPO has put the foundations in place to take
on Samsung, Apple, Jaomi and others. I spoke to some
of Oppo's key executives in Barcelona and they told me
that they've already mapped out the next three years of
smartphone innovations and it's all incremental gains on what is
(32:38):
already available, no talk of pivoting to smart glasses or wearables.
They see plenty of life left in the smartphone format.
So time will tell whether the Phinex nine pro can
shift perceptions and market share figures here, but it's clear
Oppo's playing the long game. That's it for this week's episode.
You can find more episodes of the Business of Tech
(32:59):
up business dot co dot nz. We're streaming on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Peter Griffin. Thanks
so much for listening, and I'll catch you next week
for another episode of the Business of Tech.
Welcome to the Business of Tech powered by two Degrees Business.
I'm Peter Griffin. If you've shopped for a new phone lately,
you've probably noticed that the options for buying one are
well a bit limited When it comes to brands, Apple
and Samsung claim roughly eighty percent of the market between them.
If you're an Apple fan, you probably won't go past
(00:24):
the new iPhone seventeen lineup anyway. Chinese brand Oppo has
around eleven percent of the market overall and is steadily growing. Then,
Android uses are faced with a handful of smartphone brands
like Motorola, HMD which used to be Nockier, and gell Me,
another Chinese brand, but they only claim low single digit
(00:45):
slices of the pie each. The top three brands do
have extensive ranges, from the high end flagship phones to
entry level handsets, but it's not really like the PC market,
where you have a much larger range of brands vying
for position. Oppo is the real emerging challenger here in
New Zealand and internationally. Last year, IDC ranked it fourth
(01:09):
for global smartphone shipments, eight point eight percent of the market,
with one hundred and three million phones shipped. The consumer
electronics company based in chen Ji in China, started out
in the early two thousand selling Blu ray players and
MP three players, but it is now the biggest smartphone
maker in China. I've been to it's vast chen Jin
factory where tens of thousands of phones roll off the
(01:30):
conveyor belts every day, and last week I was lucky
enough to be in Barcelona for the launch of OPO's
new flagship Find x nine and Find x nine Pro smartphones.
These are the top of the range phones, going up
against the Samsung Galaxy S twenty five and S twenty
five Ultra, and I guess, to some extent, the flagship
(01:51):
iPhones if people can be persuaded to move from Apple.
My first look review of the Fine X nine Pro,
which sell for nearly two and a half thousand dollars,
that's sort of what you're paying now across the board
for these flagship phones. I suggested that this is the
moment where Oppo has really come of age, moving beyond
experimentation and novelty value to really take on Samsung and
(02:16):
Apple feature for feature, actually putting more memory and more
features into the phones. In some cases, at first glance,
the new Finance devices could be mistaken for iPhones design wise,
but they have really impressive cameras, some clever artificial intelligence integration,
and the biggest battery currently in a flagship smartphone, offering
(02:39):
around two days of usage between charges with regular use.
This is Oppo showing it's serious about making a dent
in the market, eager to break that cozy duopoly of
Apple and Samsung, who divide the lion's share of the
one point three billion market between them. So this week,
on the back of the Fine x nine launch, I
talked to Morgan Helene, the managing director of Opo New Zealand,
(03:02):
about how the company is trying to build real trust
with Kiwi consumers, not just through flashy specs, but with service,
reliability and design that competes head to head with the
big two. We also dig into that new flagship phone,
the Find x nine pro, and what it says about
Oppo's ambition to become a household name. Here's Oppo's Morgan Helene.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Morgan, Welcome to the business of tech. How are you
doing very good? Thank you very much, great to see you.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
You've just launched in Barcelona, the Opo Find X NINEUS
is your flagship device. And really, you know, it's an
interesting time for OPO in the New Zealand market. You're
sort of growing. You're a disruptive brand. I think you
could be described as in New Zealand. For as long
as I've been covering smartphones and the mobile market in
(03:59):
New Zealand, and it's really been Apple and Samsung dominating
the market. And I think people, particularly Apple bands, they're
not going to really go anywhere. It's really hard to
get him into Android, although I'm constantly trying with my
friends because I'm not a not an owned fan, and
then most people go to Samsung.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
But we have had in the last decade.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
First we had Huawei, which did some great hand skits,
unfortunately isn't really a player in.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
The market here anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
And we've just seen a gradual rise off OPO in
the market as well. So I mean it's really sort
of becoming a mainstream choice now, isn't it. I mean
a lot of people I know are you know, naturally
going for OPO handsets when before they probably would have
been Samsung users.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean like it's a long time journey
that we have. Obviously we were started in about seven
years ago, and we knew there's a gap in the
market when there's only two players in his own market,
and I think there's opportunity for a third brand. And
it's just good for us actually to be coming into
(05:03):
a new kind of region but also to be able
to just provide option to consumer in New Zealand obviously,
and just over time we just built that brand awareness
and then obviously that helped us a little bit into
soft people getting to know who we are and slowly
they can then understand and can see output of difference
in the market.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Basically, Yeah, that's that's the tough thing to crack, isn't it.
There's brand loyalty, so building that brand loyalty and just
the awareness of it, and I think that took a
while for OPA really to get that brand awareness, and
then you did things like you've you've obviously been a
big supporter of football and in New Zealand with the
Phoenix and the All Whites now as well, you've just
(05:46):
signed a two year partnership and that is a strategy
I think for OPO and other parts of the world
as well. You've got a really strong relationship with football
and with FIFA and the like. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Absolutely. Look, I think football itself is around the community, right.
I mean there's a lot of community events that we
actually part of us and as part of our strategy
course strategy be a bit more part of that. However,
I think the biggest high level reason why we want
to do it is around our strategy from day one
in New Zealand is how do we show the customer
(06:19):
in New Zealand that we are a global company, but
we're also local, not just from the operation point of view,
but how do we embed our brand to be a
little bit more resonate with the local customer. And I
think you know, one of them, Phoinix is a good
example there being the only football team in them ends
at for a long time in a leak competitions. Uh
(06:41):
And it is kind of like in directly representing New
Zealand only until recently oupland f C obviously came in
and they have been a great partner for us to
st having that resonate closer to the New Zealand customer.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
It's great and it's great to see Auckland in there
and you know, in first season doing phenomenally well. So
that's there's definitely a buzz developing around around football and
New Zealand, which is fantastic in terms of your market strategy.
You obviously have handsets that span the entire sort of
range from entry level up to the high end, which
(07:17):
is the you know, the Find X series, You've got
smart watches, you've got tablets. I've just been looking at
your new Android based tablet. You know, what's your strategy,
particularly at a time when the economy is tough in
in New Zealand. You know, you are you seeing people
looking for more if the off your like the Reno range,
(07:38):
you know, more of the value sort of handsets at
the moment, or is there still that appetite for for
high end devices?
Speaker 4 (07:44):
New Zealand is actually an interesting market. I mean I
think I may have spoken to you about this before.
I mean the shape of the price point by volume,
it's actually it's shaped like an hour glass. We sell
all lot in the high end, a lot of key.
We consumer love the best of the best, but also
(08:06):
that is one part of the market that say, look,
I can't afford it, then there will go in the
five hundred dollars and under what we're seeing though in
the last couple of years. That is a slowly there's
a shift of that premium slowly, but surely it's going
down to more at mid range and that's where the
Reno is for us. Reno for us is not so
(08:29):
much around the volume and such, but it's about just
the bridge between our A series which is the entry
and met to bridge then for the next step for
whoever from the A series to the Reno and then
hopefully would like them go to the premium where the
majority of the volume is in the New Zealand market.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So yeah, they're well established now, the fine X and
A Reno models.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
People know them.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You've done over the years some really good innovation, particularly
around fast charging super charging. I think Oppo was a
pioneer and that that sort of standard now, but a
few years back getting half of your battery life topped
up in a matter of ten minutes or something like
that was actually a breakthrough on the cameras as well.
(09:16):
That there's been a lot of innovation. Maybe talk us
through what you think with this fine X nine coming out.
It comes after Apple's launched its phones for the year Samsung,
so you sort of get the final say for the
year in terms of innovation, what are the things that
really stick out for you when you look at the
fine X nine it's just been launched in Barcelona in
(09:37):
terms of new features or functionality.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Probably I will start with just like giving a little
context obviously, what is fine X for us for a
long time?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Right?
Speaker 4 (09:46):
I mean, I know when you say it fine X,
it sounds like a little bit like by Discovery. It's
the way you say like fine next. You know what
is what's the next thing? Basically, And that's pretty much
what the series is all about. It's always hard do
we push boundaries in design, innovation and et cetera. And actually,
my first device that I launched with Opoh when I
(10:08):
first joined was the first fine X and I still
remember it has this I don't know if you remember.
It has this crazy motorized camera system.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And the whole polarizing wasn't it? It was?
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Yeah, And the whole front of the phone was just screen, right,
and it's like no not no punch hole and just
pure display basically, And I guess that's why fin X
was it. We're just trying to say we're not afraid
to try something. But over time that has evolved a
little bit you can see from the fin X two,
fin X three and finex five. We just moved from
(10:43):
something from flashy kind of experiments to a little bit
more refined technology. And you know, we focus on like
you said, display quality, the charging speed, and camera innovation.
And we pinte it up with Hassle Blood obviously positioning
the finance as more like the prem in photography tool.
And again, now it's not just about SPACs, but there's
(11:04):
just a clear direction that how do we want to
use technology and also art basically, and we just want
to make you how can we make it more human
centbject design. It means like it should be feel like
a natural thing to have in your hand rather than
just hey, this is the best backbone in the in
the world. Basically, I think Phini's nine the flagship itself.
(11:27):
The chip set, we're going to be one of the
first in the world to puner up with media attack
with their ninety five hundred chip set. And what's special
about it is three nanometers, So what it means is
it's going to be super powerful, but it's power efficient.
And again we're trying to address a lot of the
issue we have daily that I'm pretty sure you ran
(11:48):
out of your battery a couple of times. Being a power.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
User, Yeah, I usually get just into the red sort
of in the evening most except when I'm traveling and
I'm using a lot. I was in San Francisco a
couple of weeks ago and I was almost not able
to order an uber because I've been using. I've been
out and about all days. So that is becoming, i
(12:11):
think a bit of an issue for people. They really
do want at least a day of battery life, right,
hopefully a day and a half at least.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Absolutely, and that's why we now with the fish and chipset,
we top it up and I know you hear it
for us here. Basically with the silicon battery technology is
getting better and better. We put a seven five hundred
million battery on the Finance nine prove and it's probably
(12:39):
one of the biggest battery out there in the New
Zealand market. Basically it's huge. Yeah, and depending on the
usage case. Obviously, if you're a power user, it will
last you a day, that's guarantee for sure. And if
you're not a power user, I'm just hoping that we
can see that extended more than a day or longer.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
That's great, good battery life. In terms of that relationship
with hassled Lad on the cameras, anything exciting new there.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yeah, absolutely so we actually this time around the partnership
has extended a little bit. Originally we actually partner them
on just in the color tuning and imaging experience. This
time around is a step further. We actually also work
with them with the actual lens itself, where they help
us to make sure that is the right setup and
(13:30):
the right material to be able to produce to the
best image that are close to what Hassablood camera can produce. Basically,
that's one part of it on the phone, and this
time around we also introduce a little kit accessories for
hassle Blood lens so that customer who would like to
try it, they can actually get this particular system to
(13:54):
make the camera experience even closer to a proper digital
cameras a lotasically.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
So you're sort of targeting sort of real digital photography
enthusiasts who want to take it a little step further,
maybe if they're getting landscape photography or doing videography or
something like that, actually sort of elevating it into almost
like a semi pro sort of experience.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean there's a lot of those things
that we put in the camera and I think you
will see it from the launch events. Is that we're
just trying to again all the time every year, how
do we continue to get closer to some of the
professional gears and you know there's still a gap, but
will continue to find ways to make it easier for
(14:39):
everyone to have the same high quality experience that will
have on just a pure photography or videography PRODUCTI Bistically.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
All of the phones really over the last couple of
years have featured artificial intelligence in one capacity or other.
Some of them have their own AIS systems, some of
them are incorporating Gemini and others integrating them into the
operating system in quite a compelling way.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
What's OPO's approach to AI for us?
Speaker 4 (15:10):
It's actually and one thing I love about OPO is like,
actually about two years ago they're knew that AI is coming,
and then they come together and understanding, Okay, where is
OPO would like to go direction wise with AI? So
they come up with three things. There's three major domains
that they're really focused on. One is AI productivity, So
(15:30):
it features that help user to get things done more easily.
So for example, the summarization, the search, the calls, and
the second domain is the AI creativity, so just enabling
user to express themselves. So into some image video editing,
avatar if you're into that, and generative tools. And the
last one is around AI emerging. You know, how do
(15:53):
we take advantage of the camera that we have, the
sensor that we have, then processing it to deliver better photos, video,
or better zoom in or even low light performance. But
the idea is that how do we move from a
single AI features And this is what we see a
lot and even from ourselves at the start, but everyone
(16:13):
else in the market is how do we move from
that single AI feature to more system level approach where
it's more than ai've woven into the experience.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Basically, you know, we've seen you know, Apple was going
full steam ahead of Apple Intelligence have had to sort
of dial things back because you know, the the expectation
and the reality there was a gap there, you know
saw you know, Samsung this year they were sort of
looking at trying to integrate different features using AI, for
(16:42):
instance in a text message to pull in some some
mapping information, maybe some directions, maybe some restaurant recommendations. So,
as you say, trying to get beyond one single AI
feature and integrate all of these things, it's tricky on
the mobile operating system to really pull that off. You've
got limited screen real estate. You've got to reach into
(17:05):
different applications to get the information that you need, whether
it be something from your email, if you're in messaging
or in the text interface. It's getting better, but it's
quite a big challenge to overcome.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, you got it right there, and I think that's
why we always say, you have to go back to
the basic verst of understanding. If we want to achieve
all of those things, what are the background bits that
has to come right? So that's why actually we talk
about end to an ecosystem with open products, like making
(17:40):
sure that we work with the chipset itself, the manufacturer
device itself, and but also cloud basically, so we're making
sure that it covers the ship processing, which is on
device processing, and then how do we use the cloud
infrastructure as well, So for example, we partner with Media
Attack Obviously, how do we optimize hardware for real time
(18:02):
AI processing? So it's effission and also powerful. But also
how do we partner with our clouds of a provider
on do all the hard computing or edge computing that
we needed something quickly or bigger processing.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Basically, I think we are going to see in the
next couple of years. You know, you've got the likes
of open Ai doing their venture with Johnny Ives, the
former Apple designer iPhone designer. They've got some device in
(18:36):
the work. So I think we're going to see a
morphing of formats. It seems like we've almost reached sort
of peak smartphone. Every just about every innovation we can
squeeze out of the format we've done, thinner screens, lighter devices, foldables,
which has been into as well, has some nice foldable
(18:57):
devices out there which are getting better and better all
the time. It's sort of like, yeah, what's the next innovation?
The industry seems to be looking to smart glasses and wearables,
and I'm sure you guys are as well.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Yeah, I think I think that's the that's the fun stuff, right,
it's actually without telling too much what's next and telling
you what is in our portfolio as well. But again,
you know, I think while the physical form of mobile
phones has picked like you say, but there's still a
lot of improvement that it can be made. No matter
what if you if you think about it, you still
(19:33):
have some type of screen to be able to process
the information. Right, that's still physical barrier that we can
push even further if we want to on weight, on
slimness to give you example. Right, we haven't gone into
this yet, but a lot of a processing at the
moment happened at the phone because of the chip set
and chip set require bigger battery or strong battery and
(19:54):
et cetera. But imagine in the future where you know
you have in good enough wireless data around you, what
there's sixty seven G whatever it is in the future,
and just have everything compute in the cloud. You can
just have a screen basically on your hand with a
little bit of battery that can run everything without having
the weight of the current phone that you have. That
(20:15):
could be one of the things that you can imagine
they could happen.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Yeah, and look for all the talk of smart glasses,
we've seen the ray band relationship with Meta that's been
out there several years. The ones they just released look
a lot more advanced, but consumer uptake on these sort
of non conventional formats is still quite limited, and even
on foldables because they know fold the Galaxy fold for
(20:38):
its and sets a three and a half thousand dollars device.
So when it comes down to it, the bulk of
the market having a screen, high resolution, beautiful looking screen
you can watch videos on, you can be productive on,
and will last you through the day. That's still really
the sweet spot for the mobile industry. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, looking.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Forward a little bit, what's the you know, what's the
market like? I think you have something like around about
ten percent of the market in New Zealand, which is
which is pretty good after you know, a relatively short
amount of time in the market here. What really drives
the dynamic in New Zealand is it, for instance, the
carrier relationship. That is that a real key deciding factor
(21:21):
in what sort of hand set a consumer buys in
New Zealand. That relationship with the likes of one in
z Spark in two.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Degrees does operateor definitely play a part on the success
or having a brand to be successful, obviously having the
endorsement or the support from the operator. It's kind of
cement the eligibility of the products. Basically, it's that people
understand that, oh, if this operator arranged them, this product
(21:51):
must be trustworthy, it must be been tested into the
network and et cetera. So it is definitely, but I
think the biggest one that really move the dial into
soft market presence market awareness it still is, is the
brand awareness and the brand trusts. And that's why we
(22:11):
had to change our strategy from when we first came
into new zone where we straight away went into mid
to high range because again, like we talked about, that's
not where the volume is. We need to build trusts
and the only way to build trust is actually how
do we get more prophones into people hands. They try it,
their belief in it, they trust the quality of it,
(22:33):
and then slowly they then upgrade into the mid range
and then after that upgrade to the premium range as well.
And that's why we've been just slowly while the marketing
part we built brand awareness with the sponsorship, we're marketing
our brand, who we are, what we do. We also
focus a lot making sure that a series is a
(22:56):
strong product range for us basically, and you can see
recently we focus on around a lot or on durability,
and we knew that it's not just put off our
sustainability strategy just to make sure how do we make
sure phones last longer? And key we loft at as well,
you know, because Kiwis have to drop a lot of
their phones all the time, and it helps us to
(23:18):
kind of build and sumend that trust all the time.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah, a lot of Kis may not sort of realize
just what a big operation OPO is in China. I've
been to the factories and change in you know, huge operations,
sophisticated operations, and China is a powerhouse in mobile development now.
And thankfully you don't run into any geopolitical issues, you know,
(23:43):
selling your phones here. You're not a mobile network equipment
maker like Huawei was, so you avoid that and avoid
the tariff issues as well, because.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You're sending phones from China directly to New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Yes, and no, I think one thing that again, OPO.
That always surprised me, but it you know, we they're
always kind of talk about, Hey, I know we came
from China, we're beast in China, but you don't forget
we are a global company. So even during the COVID
time or during the tough time, right. Even our supply
(24:20):
chain strategy, it makes sense as a global company, so
we just don't have manufacturing in China, but we actually
have manufacturing in the country where it is max sense.
So for example, we have manufacturing in India, we have
manufacturing in Indonesia. It shows, like I said, that glocal
approach with global company, but we're also very local basically,
(24:42):
and it's kind of helped us to be a little
bit more agile where when the accumum factors is affecting
everybody else.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
The phone is the flagship business. But you know I
mentioned the smart watchers and tablets. What's your strategy in
those areas and are you seeing growing appetite. A lot
of keys now are into smart watches. They want to
track their their health and that sort of thing, and
the smart watches are getting more sophisticated in what they
can track. Are you seeing decent growth in those categories?
Speaker 4 (25:10):
Funny enough, we just actually look into it and to
solve the market data. It is probably one of the
only category in the durable tech that are still growing
this year, and that is a little bit more increase
in the uptake. It's a positive outlook. We have a
great product in the wearable. You know, one of the
things that we do is again battery life has always
(25:31):
been the gripe with wearable, but with the Watch X
recently or the Watch X too, we implemented the two
chipset kind of system. And what it does is that
when you don't use the smart function, we run the
more low power chip set and allow you to still
see messages, look at the time, and do minus tasks
(25:53):
and your battery will lust three to four days basically.
And again that actually quite a differentiation have the market.
And one thing that I love about op approach as
well is inclusiveness rather than trying to have a close ecosystem.
Just to give example, our headphones, you know, it doesn't
matter if you were using an Android devices from different
(26:15):
brands or using the fruit phone, you can actually use
the full function of the headphones, whether it's the noise
canceling control, also the volume control, all the same as
you would use it in OPO products. And we're doing
the same with our wearable as well, where whatever ecosystem
you're using, operating system you're using, you can't use them.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
That's great.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Yeah, and Androids still still such a good platform for
all the smartphone operators, color Oasis, your version of your
building on Android. And what I like about what you
guys do is you keep it relatively light installation of Android.
You're not trying to put on a lot of bloat
(26:57):
where it's actually quite a reasonable experience.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Anything with this upgrade, what version of Android are we
on now?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
So this one will have the latest one? So we
have the Androids sixteen six launch.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, anything particularly about sixteen that's notable.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I've been testing it obviously, And one thing that are
like the best is probably a new feature called AI
mind Space. So it's a new thing that we were
introduced and with this particular lounch. So it's like a
smart assistant style feature of capturing, organizing, and retrieving information
(27:35):
within your phone. So I think, for example, I asked you, like,
how many screenshot do you have currently in your phone?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Oh? Thousands?
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Yeah? Yeah, And this is what we're trying to solve
basically again with AI. How do we woven that experience
into your daily life. So if you have something on screen, right,
you could actually take a screenshot of whether it's a promotion,
it's a node, it's a concert time, then you can
trigger kind of like a safe gesture and is captured
by distinct mind space and once the capture, it can
(28:05):
be analyzed by AI and identify the key elements such
as dates, your location, or keywords contact, and then it
will suggest actions. So it's a hey, would you like
to add this calendar event to this particular concert? And
if you say yes, then it will then directly again
connected to your whether your Gmail, what are your artlook,
(28:27):
whatever it is, and it will create the calendar event
for you. And the safe content also become kind of
searchable via the phone as well, so you can rather
than you go scroll over your screenshot, you can just type, hey,
can you tell me which screenshot that about a vestival
or about the concert, and it will pull the relevant
(28:48):
items for you.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
I'm taking screen grabs all the time off tickets or
receipts or whatever, and then I'm constantly scrolling through thousands
of photos and you know, it's time consuming. So if
it can extract that information you create a calendar entry
or a note or something like that, that would be awesome.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
And the possibility is kind of be massive, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
So, Morgan, we're rapidly approaching the end of the year.
That's the big selling season when it comes to consumer electronics,
how are you feeling going into sort of the Black
Friday and that sort of period from early December on
through to the Boxing Day sales and New Year sales.
It has been a tough year for retail. But talking
(29:32):
to other companies, they seem to think that we're sort
of turning a bit of a corner. They're they're sort
of optimistic about the Christmas sales season.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
You got to have to write, I mean like we,
like you said, everyone feeling it a bit tough this year.
We had an amazing Q one where we're a double
digit growth on you, but then it comes Q two
and Q three endorse kind of buffer slowly disappear. But
you know, I think you see from the economy point
of view, consumer confidence is still pretty low at the moment,
(30:05):
but the government are doing everything they can to try
to reduce that pain by reducing all cr and stuff
like that, and I think that's where the positive come from.
There's action happening, and you will see this possible income
will be a little bit more available and hopefully sooner
than later. So yeah, I'm still quite hopeful for Q four,
especially Black Friday and Christmas. But like I say, we
(30:30):
when we see big brand like Apple started the scout,
you know that it's a tough time.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, it is definitely, yeah, but hey, look you've got
a new flagship phone on the market, well in time
for Christmas, so that's exciting. And yeah, lots of innovation
to come. So good luck for the sales season and
for the fine Next nine launch. And thanks so much
for coming on the Business of Tech, Thank you for
(30:57):
having me.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Thanks to Morgan Helene from OPO for coming on. It's
fascinating to see how brands like OPO are moving beyond
the challenge of phase, focusing less on price and more
on building long term credibility in a crowded market. We
saw this a few years back with another Chinese challenge
of brand, Huawei, which made a very impressive range of
flagship phones such as the P twenty, the P thirty,
(31:30):
P sixty, but it was basically killed in Western countries
because its parent company also makes mobile network equipment base
stations for four G and five G networks. For instance,
our government and others considered that a national security risk,
so Huawei was excluded from building five G networks here.
US restrictions of Huawei phones accessing the Google play Store
(31:54):
effectively wiped out its handset business outside of China too.
Why would you buy a phone if you can't use
the core Google apps and download apps from the play Store.
So Huawei is no longer selling phones here. Oppo, however,
it never ran into the same problem. It's clear through
partnerships with Hasselblad on camera development, Chinese chip maker Media Tech,
(32:17):
and its own expertise in battery and fast charging development,
that OPPO has put the foundations in place to take
on Samsung, Apple, Jaomi and others. I spoke to some
of Oppo's key executives in Barcelona and they told me
that they've already mapped out the next three years of
smartphone innovations and it's all incremental gains on what is
(32:38):
already available, no talk of pivoting to smart glasses or wearables.
They see plenty of life left in the smartphone format.
So time will tell whether the Phinex nine pro can
shift perceptions and market share figures here, but it's clear
Oppo's playing the long game. That's it for this week's episode.
You can find more episodes of the Business of Tech
(32:59):
up business dot co dot nz. We're streaming on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Peter Griffin. Thanks
so much for listening, and I'll catch you next week
for another episode of the Business of Tech.
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