Dubai
Chinese manufacturer Oppo, the world’s fourth-largest smartphone vendor is cashing in on its selfie-expert cameras to gain further market share in the Gulf countries.
“We had a strong growth in 2017 and are entering the European markets this year. We operate in 30 countries and all the markets we operate, we had an excellent growth,” Ivan Wu, general manager of Oppo Gulf, told Gulf News.
He said that the smartphone photography is undergoing a rapid change and with artificial intelligence (AI) coming into the picture, the output will get better over time.
Oppo launched F3 and F5 selfie cameras last year and launched F7 recently. The F3 had dual 16MP+ 8MP on the front while F5 had a 20MP camera and F7 has a 25MP camera.
Wu said that professional photographers and make-up artists are consulted during the R&D process, resulting in the AI technology, which makes selfies look so much more attractive, no matter what the skin or face type.
“We had and have challenges in the market but we are accepting it and that drives us for further innovation and better user experience and that is why our smartphones have been marketed as selfie phones,” he said.
According to research firm International Data Corporation, Oppo had a market share of 7.6 per cent in 2017 globally compared to 6.8 per cent in 2016. In the UAE, Oppo has accomplished a 400 per cent growth in shipments from the first quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2017.
“2018 is going to be a promising year for us. With 5G coming soon, our researchers are working on the devices. The smartphone industry is going to interesting,” Wu said.
Moreover, he said the ‘AI Beauty 2.0’ technology can not only identify the differences between a man and a woman but also the age, skin type and skin tone.
“The tool is programmed to understand your selfie editing preferences and customises according to your previous profiles to enhance beautification. It will sync up to a global database and learn to optimise and deliver the best selfies,” he said.
Nabila Popal, research manager for handsets and display solutions at IDC, said that AI is and will be a big “buzz word” in 2018, all flagships that want to be taken seriously will need to have some feature related to AI.
However, she said that given the current economic situation in UAE, and in other parts of the GCC region, will this “buzz” feature really make someone spend their ever-tightening disposable income or cause them to refresh their phone sooner than later, the answer is “No”.
“So in short, it’s not going to pull out consumers who are happy with their phone, but might be the tipping factor for those already out to buy a new phone,” she said.
Wu added that Oppo has 370 patents for AI-related technologies and 20,522 patents for smartphone technologies.
Kafil Merchant, research analyst at IDC, said that Oppo has been an outperformer within the tier 2 category brands and have achieved 3.1 per cent smartphone share in the UAE for 2017.
“Oppo competes with various brands at a similar value point. The brand is endeavouring to make progress in the region and gradually picking up presence in mid- to high-end smartphones. Their solid advertising strategies in different regions have given them significant awareness in GCC and adding to this their direct distribution strategy in key nations like UAE with their own sales army is working to support them and bringing about this growth,” he said.
Oppo sponsors the Indian cricket team and the Barcelona football team. The Barcelona football team agreement is until 2019.
“We expect Oppo can become a top-five smartphone brand,” Merchant said.
