Farewell to OPPO USA

[j3brow]

I picked up a 203 yesterday. Figured we could use a 2nd one in the house.

[Vintage Pete]

Originally Posted by Charles

When I first joined AA 6 years ago I noticed and was surprised at how passionate the Oppo following was. I am truly sorry this has happened. There are so many manufactures of specialty products that seem to not have the following Oppo does. I don't understand how this tragedy could have happened. Why doesn't a larger entity buy the company and inject the necessary money to make it a success? Very sad.

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by Charles

Why doesn't a larger entity buy the company and inject the necessary money to make it a success? Very sad.

Oppo already is a big company, and owned by an even bigger one. They are a division of Oppo Electronics, according to Wikipedia the largest cell phone supplier in China. Oppo Electronics, in turn, is owned by BBK, the largest cell phone manufacturer in the world. I suspect it’s a case of a big company with a small, specialty division making niche products for a shrinking market and finally deciding it’s just not worth the continued investment.

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by Charles

When I first joined AA 6 years ago I noticed and was surprised at how passionate the Oppo following was. I am truly sorry this has happened. There are so many manufactures of specialty products that seem to not have the following Oppo does. I don't understand how this tragedy could have happened. Why doesn't a larger entity buy the company and inject the necessary money to make it a success? Very sad.

As I understand the parent company Oppo Electronics Corporation is one of the largest electronics manufacturers in China. They are larger than just about all electronics companies in the world. So who do you propose to buy their US Oppo entity. CD and DVD players are a commodity with little future. The only ones remaining in 5-10 years will be high priced models that can cover the associated costs.

[SAPHANA]

Bu Bu Gao (or BBK if you will) is not the largest in China, and their cell phones are not no. 1 in China. But yes, their focus switched from disc players to cell phones many years ago.

Recent years some much much smaller Chinese companies acquired several European speaker companies (don't want to mention the brands because it's not relevant here) because high end speakers still have market in China. However, silver disc player is a completely different story: people there stopped buying players long long ago. So even though Oppo players are so well received in North America and Europe, most people in China even never know Oppo still make physical media players. All they remember is the good old days back in 90s when BBK made the most popular VCD players in China.

In the end if no company will acquire the Oppo digital business in the US, the only reason I can think of is: it's not worth all the effort selling it. Sad, but that's the fate of physical media.

[vegaracer1]

I wonder if politics motivated this decision,or at least the timeline?

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by vegaracer1

I wonder if politics motivated this decision,or at least the timeline?

I have glanced at the proposed tariffs as that was one of my first thoughts. The list can be viewed here. https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...esentative.pdf

All I can say is that whoever is responsible for creating that list of tariffs is really behind times when it comes to consumer electronics. You can use "find on this page" feature to do a quick search. The list mentions "VCR" 26 times in various configurations.... Cathode ray tubes... Projection monitors with built in VCR... It is a joke! No DVD or Blu-ray is mentioned in the list which must be at least 15 to 20 years outdated.

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by SAPHANA

Bu Bu Gao (or BBK if you will) is not the largest in China, and their cell phones are not no. 1 in China. But yes, their focus switched from disc players to cell phones many years ago.

Recent years some much much smaller Chinese companies acquired several European speaker companies (don't want to mention the brands because it's not relevant here) because high end speakers still have market in China. However, silver disc player is a completely different story: people there stopped buying players long long ago. So even though Oppo players are so well received in North America and Europe, most people in China even never know Oppo still make physical media players. All they remember is the good old days back in 90s when BBK made the most popular VCD players in China.

In the end if no company will acquire the Oppo digital business in the US, the only reason I can think of is: it's not worth all the effort selling it. Sad, but that's the fate of physical media.

I noted they are "one of the largest". They may have been passed by Huawei but ~80% of the Chinese market is made up by Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Apple, all with under a 20% share.

Your comment about the demand for silver disc players is spot on. The demand for CD/DVD and Blu-Ray players and the associated drives has fallen off a cliff. As soon as "the market", which really doesn't include audiophiles, moved to solid state devices for storing music and data the writing was on the wall. A stampede to exit a over capacitized low profit market.

[Charles]

On the bright side Oppos just got much more vsluable.

[tweet]

Originally Posted by Charles

On the bright side Oppos just got much more vsluable.

And worth more too!