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It was an intense discussion about movies that would change the course of a top smartphone maker in China. Mr Zhou Yibao, a young rising star at phone maker OPPO, had to convince his CEO on why their company needed to make a new class of premium smartphones. OPPO had built its success on affordable mainstream smartphones, but Mr Zhou believed the company’s future was in high-end foldables that could open up into a tablet-sized device. However, it was 2019 and the first foldable smartphones from other makers were viewed as heavy, thick and gimmicky by consumers. They failed to take off in sales.  The engineering-trained Mr Zhou saw things differently. Mr Zhou, now the director of the flagship foldable phone division at OPPO, said: “My CEO likes to watch movies and I asked him whether he would rather watch a movie at a regular cinema or an IMAX cinema with a bigger screen.” “He said ‘IMAX’ and I said ‘That’s why we should make foldable phones.’”  “He was surprised and I explained that our eyes naturally desire bigger and better visuals. For example, many families now have 70-inch, 80-inch or even 100-inch televisions.” “People want their entertainment on bigger, not smaller screens.” To satisfy this innate desire for larger displays, smartphones have gradually increased in size over the years but they have hit a size plateau at about 6.5 inches in diameter.  Added Mr Zhou: “Our hands won’t grow to accommodate larger phones, but our eyes still demand more. At that point, my CEO agreed with me that foldable phones were the way to go.”  “OPPO then decided to go all in with foldables.” To Mr Zhou and the OPPO team, they saw foldable phones as solving a bigger problem – reversing declining smartphone sales around the world.  The smartphone market grew rapidly from 2009 to 2017, with annual sales volume jumping from 172 million to 1.5 billion units, according to . Sales then plateaued and steadily dropped to about 1.4 billion units in 2022. Said Mr Zhou: “People used to upgrade their phones every one to two years. Now, we find that people are using their phones for more than three years before replacing them. There has been no new innovation to spur upgrades in normal smartphones.” However, foldable phones have been quietly gaining market share amid the overall market's decline. Research firm that global shipments of foldable phones (including flip and fold form factors) will reach 21.4 million units in 2023, a more than 50 per cent increase year-over-year, while the overall smartphone market is expected to decline by about 1 per cent.  Ms Nabila Popal, a research director with IDC, said: “Foldable devices currently bring that ‘wow factor' and I believe they will continue to grab more headlines and outperform non-foldable phones over the next five years.”  The risky but prescient bet on foldables has also propelled OPPO into the rarefied premium price band for smartphones.  Before 2021, OPPO had no presence in the price band above S$1,700.  Today, the OPPO Find N3 is going for a recommended price of S$2,399 and is now the 2nd best-selling foldable phone brand in Singapore.   Success has not come easy for OPPO as foldables are deviously difficult to make. To achieve the “wow factor” for consumers, OPPO worked relentlessly on the well-known issues of the screen crease, the weight and thickness of foldable phones.   From 2018 to 2021, OPPO iterated six generations of folding prototypes, accumulating 125 patents while experimenting with many mechanisms and space-age materials. In December 2021, their first foldable Oppo Find N was launched in China starting at 7,699 yuan (S$1,440), making it the cheapest foldable model at the time. Despite its success of shipment ranking top immediately in the foldable phones category, the first generation of the Find N project was unprofitable due to the high costs of the new screens and phone molds. Nevertheless, the breakthrough proved Mr Zhou’s original vision to be right and demonstrated OPPO's ability to excel in the high-end market. With their thinner and lighter 3rd generation, OPPO has hit its stride, with the OPPO Find N3 selling five times the volume of their most recent flagship smartphone – the non-foldable OPPO Find X5.   Moreover, Singapore has become the fastest growing market in the world for the Find N3. The OPPO Find N3 has enthralled high-end phone users, not just with its massive 7.8-inch unfolded display and 5.8mm thickness, but also its bendable form factor that lets users take pro-level photos in new ways.  Said Mr Zhou: “Thanks to the external phone display, your photo subjects can see clearly how they look as you frame the image. They can quickly adjust their pose before you press the shutter button.” “The phone can also prop itself up in an L-shape and let you take photos without any tripod. In the same manner, you can attend video calls without holding up your phone.” OPPO is not resting on its laurels as the foldable market is still in its infancy.   Added Mr Zhou: “My biggest fear is creating a product that users hardly use. If you look at augmented reality and virtual reality products, people may not spend more than a minute a day on them, but people spend 5-6 hours on their phones daily.” “As people do more with their phones, will they need even larger screens than the Find N3? We’re working on this.”