OPPO & vivo
The best inheritance of BBK culture — “OPPO is strong because OPPO has strong culture and a strong team”
🏢 Company Profile
OPPO and vivo are the two major smartphone brands under BBK, and also represent the most complete inheritance of Duan Yongping’s corporate culture philosophy. Both companies strictly follow BBK’s Stop Doing List: no OEM, no interest-bearing loans, no individual price negotiations with customers. Duan Yongping said “Compared to Apple, OPPO is the same as us in doing the right things” — this is his highest assessment of OPPO/vivo.
📅 Development Timeline
| Time | Event | Core Logic |
|---|---|---|
| Around 2004 | OPPO brand established | Spin-off from BBK, inheriting BBK’s cultural DNA |
| 2008–2011 | Feature phone era | Built brand through differentiation (music phones) |
| 2011 | OPPO Blu-ray player won PCMag Readers’ Choice Award | ”OPPO and APPLE actually share many of the same genes” |
| 2012–2013 | Smartphone transition, faced huge difficulties | ”At that time both OPPO and vivo faced great difficulties; we weren’t very sure we could make it through” |
| Mid-2013 | Successful transition | ”Didn’t lose money in ‘12, didn’t lose money in ‘13, but lost a huge amount throughout ‘12–‘13, finally made it through by mid-‘13” |
| After 2015 | Became global smartphone giant | ”OPPO was the only brand to successfully transition from feature phones to smartphones” |
| 2019 | Departing employees still received year-end bonuses | ”This has been the case for over 20 years — it’s about honoring contracts” |
💡 OPPO/vivo’s Core Competitive Advantages
- Strict Stop Doing List: Duan Yongping said OPPO/vivo’s Stop Doing List includes: no OEM (maintain differentiation), no interest-bearing loans (maintain financial health), no individual price negotiations with customers (unified pricing to protect brand). Chen Mingyong — now OPPO’s CEO — was the first to propose not doing OEM work. (Source: Business Logic, 2016-10-12)
- Inheritance of corporate culture: Duan Yongping said “OPPO is strong because OPPO has strong culture and a strong team while also having good products and a good business model — actually vivo is also strong for the same reasons.” (Source: Business Logic, 2019-05-22)
- Differentiation rather than price wars: Duan Yongping said “talking about price-performance ratio is just an excuse for poor product performance” — OPPO/vivo insists on making differentiated products, not engaging in price wars. (Source: Stanford SDL Dialogue, 2018-09-30)
- Doing the right things as core value: No OEM, no interest-bearing loans — these are concrete embodiments of doing the right things in business operations, practice of “doing the right things”.
- Channel differentiation: OPPO/vivo built powerful offline channel networks, representing core differentiation from internet phone brands like Xiaomi — another embodiment of differentiation strategy.
- Upholding principles during crisis: During the most difficult period of transition (2012–2013), Duan Yongping said “If we’re going to fall, let’s not fall ugly — don’t owe employees money, don’t owe suppliers money, try to protect distributors” — this embodies doing the right things during crisis. (Source: Business Logic, 2019-05-22)
💡 Genetic Similarity Between OPPO and Apple
Duan Yongping believes OPPO and Apple share many of the same genes — this is also one important reason he could understand Apple:
“OPPO and APPLE actually share many of the same genes — this is also one reason I ultimately came to understand APPLE.” — Duan Yongping (Source: Duan Yongping Investment Q&A (Investment Logic), 2011-08-07)
“I’ve always felt that OPPO’s corporate and product culture has much in common with Apple. Perhaps someday OPPO can change the world’s impression of Chinese products just like SONY changed the world’s impression of Japanese products back then.” — Duan Yongping (Source: Business Logic, 2011-11-02)
In 2011, OPPO’s Blu-ray player won the PCMag Readers’ Choice Award. PCMag specifically compared OPPO with Apple, writing: “Apple doesn’t make Blu-ray players, but even if they did, we believe OPPO would still beat them in user satisfaction.” Duan Yongping said: “Brothers really did an excellent job!” (Source: Business Logic, 2011-11-02)
💡 The Decision Behind Not Doing OEM
Duan Yongping detailed why OPPO/BBK insists on not doing OEM (Source: Business Logic, 2016-10-12):
“Chen Mingyong — now OPPO’s CEO — was the first to propose not doing OEM; forget which year but probably around 20 years ago. Why don’t we do OEM? Long-term, we want to build our own brand and need to invest all resources into our own products. There are very professional companies doing OEM; they have very professional methods to meet different requirements from many different clients. We simply don’t have energy to do those things, so long-term we would lose to those professional OEM companies. Since we know long-term we can’t beat them, we simply won’t do it.”
Duan Yongping also shared a detail: A Walmart supplier once wanted to place an order for 1 million VCD units. He rejected it directly on the phone. The other party asked “You don’t even want to discuss price?” Duan Yongping said “That’s right — at any price, I refuse.”
💬 Contract Spirit: Year-end Bonuses for Departing Employees
In 2019, news that OPPO paid year-end bonuses even to departing employees drew widespread attention. Duan Yongping said:
“This has been the case for over 20 years — it’s about contract spirit, nothing worth discussing.” — Duan Yongping (Source: Business Logic, 2019-04-20)
This is a concrete embodiment of doing the right things culture in employee relations — “no credit purchases, no delayed payments, no late salary payments, no dishonest practices”.
💬 Original Excerpts
“Compared to Apple, OPPO is the same as us in doing the right things, though there may be some gaps in doing things right. But we have accumulation.” — Duan Yongping (Source: Stanford SDL Dialogue, 2018-09-30)
“No OEM (OEM products lack significant differentiation and are hard to profit from).” — Duan Yongping (Discussing OPPO/vivo’s Stop Doing List, Source: Stanford SDL Dialogue, 2018-09-30)
“Price-performance ratio is just making excuses for yourself.” — Duan Yongping (Source: Stanford SDL Dialogue, 2018-09-30)
“OPPO is strong because OPPO has strong culture and a strong team while also having good products and a good business model — actually vivo is also strong for the same reasons.” — Duan Yongping (Source: Business Logic, 2019-05-22)
“At that time both OPPO and vivo faced great difficulties; we weren’t very sure we could make it through, so everyone reached a consensus then: If we’re going to fall, let’s not fall ugly — don’t owe employees money, don’t owe suppliers money, try to protect distributors…” — Duan Yongping (Source: Business Logic, 2019-05-22)
“This has been the case for over 20 years — it’s about contract spirit, nothing worth discussing.” — Duan Yongping (Source: Business Logic, 2019-04-20)
“OPPO and APPLE actually share many of the same genes — this is also one reason I ultimately came to understand APPLE.” — Duan Yongping (Source: Duan Yongping Investment Q&A (Investment Logic), 2011-08-07)
📚 Investment Insights
- Replicability of corporate culture: OPPO/vivo proved good corporate culture can be replicated across different companies — BBK’s cultural genes were inherited by both companies.
- Power of Stop Doing List: No OEM, no interest-bearing loans — these decisions “not to do” allowed OPPO/vivo to maintain healthy finances and brand premium in the fiercely competitive phone market.
- Doing the right things during crisis: Insisting on not owing employees or suppliers during the hardest times — this is the truest embodiment of doing the right things, and the fundamental reason they ultimately pulled through.
- Understanding OPPO is key to understanding Apple: Duan Yongping said “OPPO and APPLE actually share many of the same genes — this is also one reason I ultimately came to understand APPLE” — showing his understanding of Apple largely comes from over 20 years of firsthand experience in consumer electronics.
🔗 Related Notes
Related Concepts Corporate Culture · Stop Doing List · Differentiation · Doing the Right Things · Moat Related People Duan Yongping Related Companies BBK · Apple (benchmark company) Related Topics Criteria for Good Companies · Stop Doing List