Chinese smartphone maker OPPO, which has ceded ground to Xiaomi in the Indian market, is looking to take a page out of its Chinese rival’s marketing playbook with plans to hold its first online flash sale in the country early next week.
OPPO, which launched a new flagship smartphone on Monday in India – its biggest market outside China – plans to woo buyers with an online flash sale for the device on April 2, reported ET Telecom.
“We are learning from other brands,” Will Yang, OPPO’s brand director in India told Reuters on Monday on the sidelines of the F7 smartphone launch event in Mumbai.
Xiaomi unseated its Korean rival Samsung thanks largely to the success of its online flash sales on both Amazon.com’s Indian portal and that of homegrown rival Flipkart.
OPPO, the fifth biggest smartphone seller in India at end-December, sells the bulk of its phones via company-owned and partner retail outlets but the company, Yang said, is working on an online strategy.
OPPO, which currently assembles phones at two plants in north India and is building a third facility, is also considering designing its devices in India.
“We design now from software first but for the hardware, yes, we’ll definitely do it in the future,” Yang said to Reuters.
