Duan Yongping, the founder and chairman of Dongguan-based BBK Electronics which is behind smartphone brands Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and Realme, recently talked about the origins of the OPPO and Vivo brands during an interaction with users on the Internet.
Duan said the OPPO brand was registered by BBK, and he was involved in the earliest design of the OPPO brand, which was the pre-2001 part.
But he said he was not involved in any product design or later development, and that Chen Mingyong was OPPO's CEO and the rest of the story is theirs.
Duan is widely regarded as the “godfather” of the Chinese smartphone industry for developing two brands, Oppo and Vivo.
He said that Vivo was formerly known as BBK Phone and BBK Mobile.
The Vivo brand was established by the original telephone manufacturer around 2005 or 2006, maybe later.
He said he was not personally involved in the process of building the Vivo brand and that the CEO of Vivo is Shen Wei.
As for being called a business leader by the media, Duan said he was indeed interviewed by Asiaweek in 1999 and was given a title he had forgotten.
He said that whatever he was called, it was a way for a business magazine to capture traffic and not to be taken seriously.
Duan stressed that he retired in 2001 and did not start his own business, and that he had nothing to do with the development of the company.
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