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With the likes of Apple and Samsung showing off their technical muscle with innovation after innovation, it's been amazing what Oppo has done with using aggressive blanket advertising, good sales training, and simple marketing messages.

This strategy has been well used across other brands invested by Oppo's main investor, BBK Electronics, like Vivo and OnePlus, which has helped propel Oppo and Vivo to be the number one and three top selling mobile phones in China for 2016, topping Xiaomi, Samsung, and Apple.

Unlike other major brands, Oppo doesn't try to go after early adopters and trend setters.  Instead, Oppo targets consumers who are price sensitive and brand insensitive in fast growing Asian markets like China, India, and Southeast Asia where there is a vast middle market of people looking to buy their first smartphones.  Oppo invests heavily in advertising in these countries and makes heavy comparisons with Apple's iPhone.

Visiting the Bangalore airport in India, you can see Oppo and OnePlus take much of the available advertising space where other companies like Samsung and Amazon used to dominate.

For a while now, the Penang airport in Malaysia has also been been completely covered in Oppo advertising.  Secondary markets like Penang seem to be the sweet spot for Oppo since there is less competition from other major mobile brands who tend to focus larger markets containing a lot of high earning consumers.

In Penang, we decided to purchase an Oppo phone at the Bukit Jambul Complex, a place that is known for its wide number of mobile phone vendors

Inside the Bukit Jambul Complex, Vivo clearly dominates all visible display advertising space.

Walking through the mall's mobile phone retail area, there seem to be an endless number of stores all selling Oppo phones.  Oppo appears to give healthy profit margins to its resellers making it very popular for stores to carry and promote Oppo.  Despite the heavy Vivo advertising, there were a lot more stores selling Oppo than Vivo products.  All the Oppo phones had fixed pricing too, meaning that one store couldn't sell the same Oppo phone model cheaper than another store. 

Apparently the demand for Oppo products was so high that they were aggressively hiring sales associates in Penang.

We purchased our OPPO R9s at one of these Oppo stores where this model was heavily been promoted.

Oppo did a good job in making its features easy to understand in its demo screens of the OPPO R9s.

Oppo's demo screens showing its proprietary VOOC fast charging technology was one of the clearest explanations of fast charging out there, describing how the VOOC charger uses additional wires to provide 20 watts (5 volts @ 4 amps) directly to the OPPO R9s and provide 2 hours of talk time after just 5 minutes of charging.  VOOC doesn't leverage other fast charging technologies like USB Power Delivery or Qualcomm Quick Charge.

Oppo also touted the low heat generated from charging which allowed users to play games and watch videos for longer periods of time while charging without the phone stopping due to overheating.

Oppo sales were well trained to focus on specific key features and make the customer feel comfortable.  They also made heavy comparisons to the iPhone and how the OPPO R9s was similar to the iPhone despite the fact that the OPPO R9s was obviously Android based.  Interestingly, they stressed that the rose gold version of the OPPO R9s was very close to the iPhone's, alluding to others seeing the phone may think it was the iPhone.  Oppo sales training in making close comparisons with the iPhone have been so successful in some secondary markets that we heard that some consumers even believe that Apple copied some of Oppo's designs. 

After purchasing the OPPO R9s from one of the Oppo stores at the Bukit Jambul Complex, the sales person even had a selfie taken with us to highlight the phone's heavy selfie feature advertising and to help further promote the phone to others.

The OPPO R9s packaging is well done and similar to what you find from a premium phone.  

Unboxing the OPPO R9s, we can take a closer look at its accessories.

The main accessories of the OPPO R9s include the VOOC charger, USB Type-A to micro-B cable, and earbuds.

The VOOC charger supports 20 watts (5 volts @ 4 amps) and has a USB Type-A port.

However, because the VOOC uses extra pins not found in the USB specification, you'll need to use the included VOOC USB cable to connect the VOOC charger to the OPPO R9s.  Note if you lose this charger or or cable, you can still charge the phone using standard USB chargers and standard USB Type-A to micro-B cables- you just won't get the VOOC fast charging benefits.

The OPPO R9s also comes with white earbuds and a carriyng case.

In addition, the OPPO R9s comes with a clear plastic phone cover, SIM card remover, and user documentation.

The OPPO R9s looks nice at all angles and has curves which make it comfortable to hold.

The OPPO R9s looks and feels like a premium phone but at a price much more reasonable in markets with a lot of cost sensitive consumers.  The success of Oppo and Vivo have helped to crowd out other Chinese competitors like Xiaomi and even global competitors like Samsung.  It will be interesting to see if brands like Oppo, Vivo, and OnePlus can maintain its current momentum and develop brand loyalty that other leaders like Apple, Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi have developed over the years.