Over the past few years, many smartphone manufacturers have stopped including charging adapters with their phones. Apple is perhaps best known for being one of the first to start this trend, and soon many followed. While Oppo was a long time hold out, the company has now confirmed that it will also abandon the charger, withholding it from some of its products that will be released over the coming year.
The news was shared during the company's European launch event of the Oppo Reno 8 Pro, the Reno 8, and the Reno 8 Lite. Billy Zhang, who is Oppo's vice president of overseas sales and services, relayed the new strategy to press in attendance, stating, "We will take the charger out of the box in the next year for several products. We have a plan." Oppo is in a precarious position considering that it has been working on and building up its proprietary charging technology, VOOC, and Super VOOC, since 2014. The company has included the adapters with many of its phones, allowing its devices to charge faster and more efficiently than the competition.
Zhang addressed this by stating, “It’s not that easy for consumers to get access to [SuperVOOC chargers], so we have to keep it in the box. However, as we are expanding our business operations, we are looking to taking chargers out of the box and put them in the store so that our users are able to buy the chargers and continue using them even when they upgrade their devices.” Unfortunately, Zhang didn't dive any further into the subject, so it is unknown as of now what products will be affected. Of course, "the plan" could involve any number of moves, that will undoubtedly require numerous considerations.
As Oppo aligns itself with other companies by removing charging adapters from its products over the coming year, Zhang didn't explain why the company was shifting its strategy. But like most of its competitors, the reason is usually linked to environmental reasons. Apple first announced it was removing chargers from its boxes with the launch of the iPhone 12. At the time, the company cited that:
Power adapters use the largest amounts of certain materials. Using smaller, lighter packaging lets us fit up to 70% more iPhone boxes per shipping pallet, which helps further reduce our carbon footprint. Eliminating power adapters from device packaging lets us avoid more than 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions, equivalent to removing 500,000 cars from the road for a year. Leaving out those adapters was a bold change for Apple and a necessary one for our planet.
Going forward, Oppo will also have to make bold decisions, deciding on what devices will and will not include charging adapters. While it is a big move for the company, one can only wait and see how its customer will react.
Source: Android Police