A quick chit-chat with Damon Yang, Managing Director, OPPO Bangladesh AED
Damon Yang, born in China, has become the industry leader in his early age and has been the Operator Manager of OPPO Zhong Shan from 2013 to 2017. Yang is a man of vision that is letting the extraordinary hearts enjoy the beauty of technology. Currently, he is holding a position of Managing Director of OPPO Bangladesh AED.
This young industry leader talks to Fintech and shares his knowledge of OPPO Bangladesh and smartphone industry. Here is the excerpt.
What is OPPO’s market share globally and in Bangladesh?
Since establishing our company in 2004, we have expanded our global footprint to over 40 countries and regions. Globally, we are one of the top five companies in mobile shipments. Today, our products have enhanced the lives of more than 350 million people worldwide.
We currently have over 10,000 employees worldwide only for Research & Development (R&D), 4 Research Centers, and 6 Research Institutes. OPPO has invested $7 billion in R&D to boost the research of 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Big Data, and building core underlying hardware technologies and software engineering ability.
It has been six years since we have started our operation in Bangladesh, and during this period, the nation has become one of our important markets. We have reinforced our commitment to the local market and focused our strategy on leading the industry countrywide.
How has OPPO performed during the 6 years in Bangladesh?
We started operating in Bangladesh in May 2014, and since then, our mission has been to enhance the lives of the customers with advanced innovation. The core values that OPPO stands for are Benfen, a user-led organization that always strives for perfection and works towards having great results. The term, Benfen, has several meanings, but for us, it simply means doing the right thing.
We started here with only 5 employees, and currently, we have over 3,000 employees, with more than 99% of them are local for both fixed and temporary employees. We started our journey in Bangladesh with only OPPO Find 7. We have brought numerous other devices from Find Series, Reno Series, F Series, and A series during this period and have received outstanding responses from our customers, especially the youth.
Furthermore, we have built 250 official showrooms across the nation within a short period, along with 17 service centers and 7 repair points. We enhanced our customer services to match the fast pace of the youth of Bangladesh. Subsequently, our 1-hour flash fix service received more than 97% positive feedback and helped us to provide adequate assistance to our customers.
We have also started to manufacture smartphones in the country since the end of 2019. Our plant in Gazipur has a production capacity of 1 million units per annum. This created an opportunity for us to serve the local market with all the latest innovations. The investment has allowed us to provide unmatched quality smartphones to our customers, create jobs, and develop a technically skilled workforce.
What sets apart OPPO from other brands? And how receptive Bangladesh market has been towards OPPO?
As one of the first brands to launch 5G mobile globally, OPPO is continuously working to put innovative technology in the palm of the customers’ hands. Additionally, we are always looking for ways to smarten the lives of our customers. Hence, we became the key provider of VOOC Flash Charge and the SuperVOOC Flash Charge. VOOC was invented and patented for OPPO customers, and the ecosystem has been expanded to external partners, with more than 23 companies participating worldwide to date.
We believe in technology’s artistry, and our devices are created to stand out in the crowd. We want a wide range of people to enjoy the innovative premium features in all of their devices. Thus, the maximum of our products has received outstanding responses in the Bangladesh market.
How do you think the pandemic has affected the smartphone industry? And how is OPPO tackling the crisis both globally and in Bangladesh?
The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed significant challenges to every business, and the smartphone industry is no exception. Despite these new challenges, companies across the globe are trying their best to cope with the new-normal situation while assessing the customers’ needs during the pandemic with the support of technological advancement, operational strategies, timely initiatives, and appropriate contingency plans. As far as the pandemic situation is concerned, we will continue our operations to provide exciting smartphones and smart devices to local consumers while following all the SOPs set by the government. However, regardless of the numerous challenges that the pandemic has brought, rising smartphone usage worked as a silver lining for the industry. To avoid the spread of the virus and to maintain social distancing, people have been shifting to digital devices, subsequently creating a positive impact on the manufacturers. We have successfully launched several of our devices during the pandemic and have received great responses globally and in Bangladesh.
At Oppo, we continued to push forward with our technological innovation through research and development to grapple with the pandemic’s unprecedented challenges. As our immediate response to this, we coordinated and deployed global resources to ensure the health and safety of our employees while also worked with upstream and downstream supply chain, sales, and service systems to ensure the stability of the production cycle as we are highly committed to the market and care about the community and its sustainability.
What is OPPO’s plan for Bangladesh for the next coming months?
Bangladesh is globally the fastest growing economy, and the phone industry across the nation is evolving fast. According to Counterpoint Research data published after the first quarter of 2019, the smartphone market in Bangladesh grew by 45%. This has been due to locally manufactured devices, and OPPO played a crucial role in it. We will continue to launch outstanding smartphones and smart devices for the growing consumer in Bangladesh following all the SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) set by the government. We are developing an integrated ecosystem with our powerful phones with our IOT products to increase smartphone penetration as we continue to bring 5G technology to Bangladesh. We have already launched various IOT products such as true wireless stereos (TWS), smart watches etc. and products have already earned huge accolades among the users and reviewers. We will also keep on bringing more devices to enhance the users’ lives technology artistry. And while we are at it, we want to thank all our employees, our cherished customers, partners, and dealers who have supported us in our endeavor.
Thank you very much for your time to Fintech.
You are pretty welcome.
