On June 5^th, OPPO unveiled its latest flagship Reno 4 series through an online product launch. OPPO has placed high importance on the success of Reno 4 series to help it regain its foothold in the mid-to-high end segment.

In April 2019, OPPO decided to revamp its flagship series and signaled the change by renaming it from the R-series to Reno. However, the new flagship Reno series failed to maintain the glory of the previous R-series. The OPPO R9 still holds the record for the best-selling Android model with 40 million units shipped globally. The Reno series have not been as popular as R series because it takes time to build a new series that echo with consumers. In addition, the Reno series came at a time when the mid- to high-end price segment was becoming increasingly competitive in China.

The new Reno 4 series may be a game changer for OPPO. Carrying on OPPO’s tradition of excellence in photography and video technology, OPPO has further enhanced its video capabilities in the Reno 4 series.  Using OPPO’s self-developed Moonlight Night View Video Algorithm, brightness can increase 74.4% and clarity can increase 33.7% in night-time videos.  OPPO has also upgraded its video stabilization function to capture steady and smooth videos. Another distinctive difference from past generation Reno series is the Reno 4’s slimness and light weight; Reno 4 and Reno 4 Pro weigh only 183g and 172g, respectively.

In addition, OPPO has made it more friendly to vloggers and opened its functions to one of the most popular short video apps, Kuaishou. Kuaishou users can directly utilize OPPO’s features in making short videos.  This bodes well for OPPO’s younger customer base which are more avid vloggers.

Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 765G SoC, the Reno 4 series joins OPPO’s family of 5G offerings. Though OPPO lagged behind other Chinese OEMs in 5G offerings, OPPO has started to expedite its 5G roadmap and will have no new 4G product launches in the China market.

Like the marketing schemes used for OPPO’s popular R series, OPPO will use celebrity endorsement as a key marketing strategy for Reno 4. OPPO has invited young musician Ouyang Nana to be the celebrity spokesperson for the Reno 4 series and asked social media influencer Li Jiaqi to host a live broadcast sale.

Aside from the Reno 4 and Reno 4 Pro, OPPO also launched three IoT products, Enco W51 TWS, smart band and 5G CPE T1. IoT products will become an important addition to OPPO’s smartphone product line and the Company will invest RMB 50 billion (~USD7.1 billion) in R&D over the next three years in the areas of 5G, AR, IoT and AI.  OPPO has some advantages in developing IoT products such as a wide distribution network from its smartphone business and content from its sister company Xiao Tian Cai. However, its late start compared to Xiaomi and weaker telecommunications technology compared to Huawei could hamper its growth potential in the IoT market.