Breaking New Grounds at Oppo
With Will Zhou at the helm of its foldable smartphone division, Oppo is rapidly dominating the conversation around foldables and their future
From bricks to bars to slates, the form mobile phones take has evolved alongside their technologies, with every major iteration redefining the user‑device interface. The advent of foldable smartphones accompanies the development of flexible OLED screens and whilst this remains a nascent category, rapid progress is being made. Oppo is among the pioneers in this product segment, with its Find N line defining—and redefining—just what is possible in this space.
At the head of the brand’s foldable phones division is Will Zhou, a veteran who has spent a decade at Oppo across various functions. “In the past 10 years, I’ve served in various functions including R&D, product strategy and quality assurance,” he shares. “I’ve even had a stint as the executive’s assistant, which was invaluable in giving me the exposure to top‑level decision‑making at Oppo.”
Zhou’s experience has put him in good stead to enable Oppo’s market dominance in the foldables battleground; he recognises how the forward march of technology has presented various opportunities and is eager to capitalise on it. “I’ve witnessed the industry’s transition from feature phones to smartphones, and seen its accompanying shift from 3G to 4G, then to 5G,” he muses. “The next major change is the move to foldable phones. My mission as Oppo’s director of foldable products is to position the brand as the leader in this space.” He shares more in this interview.
How do you define innovation, both from a personal perspective and in the context of Oppo’s brand philosophy?
Innovation must be anchored by consumers’ needs. As times change, technologies and market conditions will shift accordingly. The underlying needs of human beings, however, do not. We believe that as long as innovation is centred on meeting the user’s requirements, it will always progress in the right direction.
In addition, we’re focused not on being the first, but on being the best. If a technical feature requires more development time before it goes to market, we’re fine with that—being patient and releasing a polished product is important to us, even if there’s pressure from competitors. I think this approach has served us well. In the realm of rollable phones, for instance, we’ve had other brands that rushed to release concept devices of their own after we unveiled ours in 2021. None of these competing products have managed to go live due to technical issues though. It’s an important lesson in completing a product development cycle properly, instead of releasing half‑baked solutions.
Why foldable phones? Did Oppo have specific reasons for focusing on this innovation?
Our definition of an innovative product is one that meets the needs of users, and a large screen is one such need. Usually, this isn’t explicitly conveyed by users, but all else being equal, would you rather a theatre with a large IMAX screen or a normal one? People simply prefer larger screens from both the visual and usability standpoints, and we’re so sure of this being the future of smartphones that we’re putting all our resources into it. Of course, consumers also want smartphones that are easy to handle. This informs our strategy to develop foldable phones for the market.
From a business analysis perspective, you can also see quite clearly that the foldable smartphone segment is growing rapidly. Given our progress so far, we’re confident that we’ll be the leader in this field.
How do you approach product development?
Simple: by staying close to our customers. If you do that, you’ll get an intimate understanding of their needs and, by extension, know what to develop to meet these needs. I was previously the lead of the Oppo R series [focused on advanced photography features], which was a successful product line with millions of units sold. When I moved to foldables, I gave up my “regular job” and went back to becoming a regular smartphone salesman. For an entire month,
I was on the ground talking to local customers to better understand their needs and preferences, and this was the foundation that we built our foldable smartphone strategy on. Let’s just say it has worked out very well so far. (laughs)
Is there a particular product that you’re most proud of ?
I think that’ll be the Oppo Find N, which was our first folding phone and one of the most innovative products I’ve worked on. On the technical side, it stood out by having the most invisible crease among folding phones. In terms of intangibles, it delivered the best large‑screen and split‑screen experiences. I think this was an important chapter for the brand, because we got recognition from the industry at the 2022 Global Mobile Awards by winning the Disruptive Device Innovation Award, and saw extremely positive market feedback in terms of sales. These gave us the confidence that
Oppo can dominate the foldable smartphone market.
How do you see the future of mobile technology evolving and what role do you see Oppo playing in its development?
If it isn’t obvious by now, we’re very bullish on foldable smartphones. (laughs) Specifically, though, we believe that foldables will continue to evolve, and become more and more advanced while also progressively shrinking in size to be easier to carry around. Indeed, we’re working on making this a reality. Our next generation of foldables, the Find N4, aims to be thinner than 10 mm and lighter than 230 g.
What kind of lasting impact do you wish to have on the industry?
One of Oppo’s core values is
which translates to being responsible to your customers, partners, employees and stakeholders. I truly believe that such an approach can create positive impacts in the wider industry, and I want to have played a part in embodying this value at Oppo.