Oppo, the Chinese smartphone company, launched its new Oppo F3 smartphone on Thursday, which is its latest attempt to strengthen position in the mid-end segment premium market. Oppo F3 is a device with dual cameras on the front which lets you take sharp selfies. The phone is clearly aimed at social media savvy users, as it continues to build a strong fan base among young consumers. “As a camera phone brand we definitely aim to provide more user friendly and better experience to our local customers. As per our research and insight in the Indian market through various channels, selfie is among the core demands. Which is why we are bringing a lot of selfie smartphones to India”, Will Yang, Brand Director of Oppo India told Indianexpress.com. The company currently sells five smartphones with selfie camera features including the F1, F1 Plus, F1s, F3 and F3 Plus in India. Oppo is working to bring more more smartphones with focus on selfies, but offered no timeline of when this could happen. While its key competitors in the smartphone business with the likes of Xiaomi and OnePlus are focusing on online-only model to grab the market share. Oppo seems to be focusing on both offline and online channels. It not only has a strong presence in offline retail channels, but it continues to strengthen its relationships with online partners. “Retail is our most important channel, but from the last year we are also expanding to online channels as well”, Yang said. Of late, Oppo is giving tough competition to both Samsung and Xiaomi in the smartphone market. In the fourth quarter of 2016, Oppo made it to the list of top five vendors with 8.6 per cent market share, as per International Data Corporation (IDC).
