Marketing Plan: Launching Oppo Smartphone Product Extension in India

This report provides a detailed marketing plan for Oppo, a smartphone manufacturer, focusing on the Indian market. The plan aims to increase sales volume, brand awareness, and market share through a product extension strategy (launching the R17 Note), digital branding, and the adoption of the SOSTAC planning system. It includes a situational analysis of the Indian smartphone market, internal analysis using SWOT, and competitor analysis. The marketing strategy incorporates STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) to identify the target market, which consists of individuals aged 18-65 with high mobile phone usage. Marketing tactics include a 4P marketing mix (product, pricing, place, and promotion) and Marcom mix, with recommendations for product features, competitor-based and penetration pricing, and the use of social media, content marketing, and email marketing. The report also outlines actions and controls to evaluate the plan's effectiveness, aiming for a 10% increase in sales volume, a 15% increase in brand awareness, and a 2% annual increase in market share over two years.

Assignment

Executive Summary
In this report, marketing plan for Oppo smart phone manufacturing company is presented.
The main purpose of this marketing plan is to launch an extended product to the existing
product line and to acquire customers through online branding. The development of this
marketing plan with the suitable strategies and tactics is done in this report by considering
the situational analysis and by adopting STP (Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning)
activities. Considering the opportunity of Oppo to increase its market share in the highly
potential Indian smart phone market, this marketing plan is proposed to adopt social media,
content marketing and email marketing strategies. Appropriate actions and the controls to
evaluate this developed marketing plan are also given in this report.

Table of Contents
Executive Summary 2
Introduction 4
Situational Analysis 4
Internal Analysis of Oppo 5
Competition 6
Objectives 7
Marketing Strategy 7
Demographic Features 7
Behavioural Features 7
Psychographic Features 8
Marketing Tactics 8
4P Marketing and Marcom Mix 8
Actions and Control 11
References 12
Appendix A: Market share in Indian smartphone market 13
Appendix B: Change in demographics 13
Appendix C: Market share smartphone companies 13

Introduction
High globalisation, technological developments and high consumerism have resulted in the
contemporary organisations operating in highly competitive and dynamic business
environments. The survival of the cotemporary organisations greatly depend on their ability
to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. Acquiring new customers and retaining
the existing ones is one key way of gaining competitive advantage by the contemporary
organisations. This marketing plan is also intended to help contemporary organisations like
Oppo to acquire customers through product launch and digital branding.
Oppo is a China based smart phone manufacturing company that is involved in producing in
manufacturing smart phones, head phones and also blue-ray players (Oppo, 2018a). Oppo
has recently entered Indian’s smart phone market due to its huge growth potential. Besides
the growth potential of Indian’s smart phone market, it is also highly competitive due to the
presence of several smart phone manufacturing companies. Sustainable growth of Oppo in
this market greatly depends on its ability to gain competitive advantage by acquiring a large
number of customers. A marketing plan is prepared to help Oppo acquire large number of
customers by launching a product extension and through digital branding. SOSTAC planning
system by Smith (2011) is considered in this report to prepare this marketing plan.
Situational Analysis
Indian’s smart phone market is one of the highly potential and also competitive sectors.
With a total of nearly 33.5 million units shipped by this market in second quarter of 2012,
this smart phone market has been experiencing a year-over-year growth of 20%. The growth
potential of India’s smart phone industry can be specified based on the fact that India
consists of several mobile users same as that of the total US population (IDC, 2018). With a

healthy growth of 20% in 2018, the number of smart phone users in India is expected to
442.5 million by 2022. This made India considered as second largest smart phone market in
the world after China (Singh, 2018). Based on the analysis of political, social, economic and
technological factors, some of the key trends dominating this industry are identified. These
trends are high brand consciousness of Indian’s smart phone considered as a symbol of
status, mobile phones becoming highly necessary good for Indians and inclination towards
smart phones than normal feature phones (IDC, 2018). Technological developments,
increasing middle class population and discretionary spending of Indian’s made every
individual to have a smart phone with several features rather than simply using for mobile
communication (Counterpoint, 2018; IDC, 2018). Availability of mobile internet through JIO
sim has resulted in the new trend of consumers looking for high technological mobiles
supporting 4G and 5G applications along with dual sim capabilities.
Internal Analysis of Oppo
The mission of Oppo is ‘to offer extraordinary users enjoy technology’. The company vision is
to become sustainable and healthier enterprise. Internal analysis of Oppo is carried out by
applying SWOT framework (Oppo, 2018b).
Strengths: Key strengths of Oppo Company are its affordable product portfolio in offering
featured mobile phones and highly successful selfie-beautification technology. Despite being
a China based company, having a manufacturing plant at Noida is a key strength of this
company (Oppo, 2018a; Oppo, 2018b). Ability to manufacturer smart phones with 5MP,
12MP front camera, aggressive marketing, integrated supply chain and international
partnerships with Qualcomm agency act as key strengths of this company.
Weakness: Oppo smart phone company consists of some weakness such as lack of
implementing Omni channel retailing, poor digital marketing campaigns and highly restricted
portfolio only on smart phones. Lack of owned e-commerce website and lack of innovative
delivery options in this technological world are also other weakness of this company. Lack of
product differentiation and the law suit on patent infringement on Oppo Company by Dolby
is also another weakness of this company (IIPRD, 2018).
Opportunities: Existing in highly potential market place, Oppo Company has great
opportunity to extend its product lines. There is also great opportunity of Oppo to its market

share by acquiring a large number of customers through online branding, having a dedicated
e-commerce website and multichannel retailing (NDTC, 2018). There is also opportunity for
Oppo to use Bollywood starts for marketing along with social media marketing to have
emotional attachment with the target market through which its sales revenue and market
share can be increased.
Threats: Increased competition level from the close competitors act as great threat for Oppo
(IDC, 2018). The other threats for this company are losing customers if product
differentiation and digital branding are not implemented by Oppo. Other threat for this
company is the expectation that Indian smart phone market reaching saturation point in
near feature.
Competition
Indian smart phone market is characterized as oligopolistic as more than 80% of the market
share is captured by top five brands namely Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Transsion
(Counterpoint, 2018). The other four brands act as key competitors for Oppo in this smart
phone market (Appendix A).
Samsung: This is the leading smart phone manufacturing company in India with 23.6%
market share in 2017 and 23.9% in 2018 Q2. This company has recorded 21% YoY growth.
Strong brand recognition, cost effective and high featured handsets highly successful low
end models like Galaxy J6, J7 along with financial schemes, cash back offers have all helped
Samsung to reach its current position (IDC, 2018).
Xiaomi: This Company has recorded YoY change in the market share of 17.6% due to the
drastic increase of its market share from 17.2 % to 29.7% by 2018. Highly successful product
portfolio, branding and aggressive marketing are key strengths for this company
(Counterpoint, 2018).
VIVO: This Company holds third position with 12.6 market share in the year 2018. This
company recorded YoY growth of 18% because of its success models like Y83, Y71 and V9
(Singh, 2018).

Transsion: This Company holds 5 th position in Indian market recording 53% YoY growth in
2018. The stability of this company is because of strong retailer connect, efficient
multichannel management and great focus on lower end market segment (IDC, 2018).
The application of BCG matrix (Armstrong et al, 2014)Oppo Company indicates that the
relatively lower share of 7.6% of this company when compared to its competitors in a highly
potential Indian smart phone indicates that it is present in ‘question mark’ state. Here Oppo
has great opportunity to increase its sale volume and increase its market share through
product differentiation and digital branding.
Objectives
The marketing plan is prepared with the main intention of achieving following objective
1. Oppo is aimed at increasing its annual sales volume by at least 10% in the next 2
years by launching a product extension.
2. Oppo is aimed at increasing brand awareness by at least 15% in the next 2 years of
implementing this marketing plan.
3. Oppo is aimed at increasing its marketing share annually by at least 2% over the
coming 2 years.
Marketing Strategy
For Oppo, the suitable marketing strategy is identified by applying STP (Segmentation,
Targeting and Positioning) concept. Considering the changing demographics of the people
using mobile phones in India (Appendix B), the target market of this marketing plan is
selected people from 18 to 65 years of age. Based on the other segmentation variables,
some of the other features of the target market are,
Demographic Features
Age group of target market lies between 18 and 65 years belonging to either male or female
gender. With target market can include people with student, working profession or a retired
person. With respect to income this target market is related to middle or the upper middle
income sections.

Behavioural Features
This marketing plan is intended in targeting people having higher mobile phone usage rate
who intend to carry several activities to mobile phones. The benefits sought by this target
market include looking for high featured, good quality along with affordable price mobile
phones for their daily usage.
Psychographic Features
This marketing plan targets the people having decent, traditional or trendy lifestyles who
have positive attitudes towards using highly featured mobile phones.
With respect to targeting, micro targeting or differentiated targeting method is considered
appropriate for Oppo. This is because differentiated targeted helps in developing the
marketing mix tactics in such a way that it helps in meeting the unique needs of different
segments existing in the UK smart phone market.
Marketing strategy can be either market position or differentiation. Among these two
strategies, Oppo needs to implement positioning as its marketing strategy. This positioning
strategy helps Oppo to position its brand very uniquely in the minds of target market based
on its differentiated features. Taking the trend of brand awareness of brand consciousness of
Indian consumers, Oppo can position as brand offering high featured smart phone in cost
effective manner.
Marketing Tactics
4P marketing mix and marketing communication mix tools are used in order to identify the
marketing tactics suitable for Oppo to achieve its objectives.
4P Marketing and Marcom Mix
Product Strategy: Currently Oppo offers product portfolio of smart phones including models
like Find X, A7, A3, F9, F9 pro and R17 Pro. The product mix of this marketing plan involves in
launching a limited edition model ‘R17’ note. Rather than being a new product, this is
product extension of ‘R17’ as this model has been high attention among Indian consumers.
This product consists of various unique features with respect to screen size, camera pixel,
screen resolution, battery power and customization options. Details of these unique features
of R17 note are,

Size of Screen 18 Centimetres
Screen display Full sized having edge display and rounded
corner
Camera pixel Front and back camera having 12mp and
1.25 um
Product Customization Available to choose from different colours
and designs
Battery Power Guaranteed 48 hours of battery power when
there is regular phone use.
Aspect ratio 20:10 based on the screen display
Phone body Very slim design, light weight and available in
black, sliver and grey colours.
Differentiating services like online buying, product customization, next day delivery, click and
collect have to be provided by Oppo in order to attract the target market towards this new
product extension and existing products. Rather than relying on Amazon to deal with online
purchase and delivery, Oppo is required to gain its owned media like a dedicated
e-commerce website to serve the purpose of online selling, same day delivery, click and
collect services.
Pricing Strategy: As part of this marketing plan, Oppo is required to implement competitor
based pricing and the penetration based pricing strategies. The penetration pricing strategy
helps Oppo to set the product prices such that company can penetrate further into Indian
smart phone market by attracting a large number of target audience. Instead of setting the
lowest prices in the market under penetration pricing, Oppo is also required to consider the
prices set by competitors as part of the pricing policy. The implementation of both this
penetration and competitor based pricing strategy helps in attracting more customers,
increasing its sales revenue and grabbing market share from its competitors.
Place strategy: In addition to the currently used retailing outlets under the name
‘Experience Zone’, it is important to use multi-channel retaining approach. Under this
approach, Oppo Company need to use its owned e-commerce website to sell the products,

offer next day delivery service, cash on delivery, click and collect service instead of relying on
third part agent like Amazon, India.
Promotion strategy: For promoting and building online brand, marketing communication
mix tools are being identified for Oppo Company. Using owned and paid media, Oppo is
required to implement the following three tools to build online branding. The
advertisements that are being designed across all these three tools is required to include the
message that contains emotional content, brand related content, informative and the
user-generated content.
(a) Advertisement: Oppo needs to design advertisements suitable for television print
media and online by having emotional informative, brand and user generated
content. For instance, associating this product extension with Bollywood starts like
Piranha Chopra and developing billiard boards and TV advertisements can help in
emotionally linking the target market with the company. In the same way designing
YouTube adverts with user generated content and brand content helps younger
consumers to be attractive towards the brand as they are highly brand conscious.
(b) Direct Market: To implement this direct marketing, Oppo needs to use its existing
media such as its website and social media along with paid media like mobile apps,
search engine optimization, email marketing and text marketing. Adding e-commerce
option to its old website and implementing social media marketing campaigns under
social media marketing strategy helps Oppo to draw customer attention and get
emotionally connected with the brand. Linking social media activities to e-commerce
website by having a call for action greatly helps Oppo to adopt the purchase tunnel
by initially creating customer awareness, attracting them and then convincing them
to purchase Oppo mobiles. Different marketing campaigns Oppo can implement
under paid media are
1. Email Marketing: By monthly subscriptions, Oppo can send emails to new and
existing target market on company offers, personalized offers, sales promotions and
any important information.

2. Mobile Phone Marketing: Oppo can send text messages to the target market
regularly to provide information attract customers towards the brand and also
include promotional offers.
3. Social Media Marketing: Oppo needs to use its social media channels in order to
provide information about Oppo products, increase brand awareness and also get
the target market emotionally connected with the company.
4. Content based marketing: As part of designing the advertisements and messages, it
is important for Oppo to implement content marketing champion. This content
marketing helps Oppo high importance for developing content that emphasizes the
importance of brand and emotionally gets connected the target market.
(C) Online Sponsorships: Oppo is required to finance specific sponsorship events like TV
programs which are even available online. Such sponsorship helps in increasing brand
visibility of Oppo and gaining high brand awareness among the target audience.
Actions and Control
To implement the marketing mix and market communication mix tools, following actions are
planned to be implemented along with the deadlines provided.
Actions Deadline
Design of Oppo R17 note By February 2019
Manufacturing of Oppo R17 Note By April 2019
Launch of Oppo R17 note By May 2019
Add e-commerce option to Oppo website By February 2019
Provide online purchasing, click and collect
option
By March 2019
Email and text based marketing From March 2019
Social media marketing and content
marketing
From March 2019
The ability of its proposed marketing plan in achieving the marketing objectives is assessed
by using 5S tool of digital marketing. According to this 5S digital marketing tool (Chaffey,

2018), the annual Sales, annual customer participation (Speak), added value to the
customers (Serve), Saving the marketing cost and extending the brand online (Sizzle) are
assessed every year.
References
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marketing.Pearson Australia.
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https://www.smartinsights.com/goal-setting-evaluation/goals-kpis/goals-for-your-dig
ital-marketing/, Accessed by: [01/12/2018]
● Counterpoint (2018). India Smartphone Market Share: By Quarter.Available [Online]
at: https://www.counterpointresearch.com/india-smartphone-share/, Accessed by:
[08/12/2018]
● IDC (2018). India Smartphone Market sees a healthy growth of 20% in Q2 2018 as
Xiaomi retains leadership, According to IDC India.Available [Online]
at:https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP44210918, Accessed by:
[09/12/2018]
● Iiprd (2018). Patent infringement suit by dolby against oppo and vivo. Available
[Online] at:
https://iiprd.wordpress.com/2016/12/21/patent-infringment-suit-by-dolby-against-o
ppo-and-vivo/, Accessed by: [08/12/2018]
● Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2015).L.(2006) Marketing management. Praha: Grada
Publishing.
● NDTV (2018). Oppo Phones. Available [Online] at:
https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/oppo-phones, Accessed by: [09/12/2018]
● Oppo (2018a).About-us. Available [Online] at:https://www.oppo.com/en/about-us/ ,
Accessed by: [03/12/2018]
● Oppo (2018b).Smartphone r17 pro. Available [Online]
at:https://www.oppo.com/in/smartphone-r17-pro/ , Accessed by: [05/12/2018]
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