History
Guangdong BBK Electronics Corporation limited was established on 18 September 1995, in Dongguan, Guangdong, China, By Duan Yongping.[4] Due to the conflict between Duan and the boss of Subor, Duan Yongping decided to leave Subor and create another company, making a commitment to not engage in student computer-related products within one year. In 1996, BBK released their first product line - the corded telephone. After the promised one year, BBK released their first student computer product "BBG Student Computer (Floppy No.1)"(BBG is the original English name of BBK). Once the product was release, it achieved great success, making BBK one of the three major student computer companies in China (the other two companies are Subor and Yuxing), and finally became the most popular student computer product in China according the investigation made by China National Radio in July 1997. Meanwhile, Duan divided BBK into three – the AV factory (the predecessor of Oppo), the telephone factory (the predecessor of Vivo), and the computer and video game factory (the predecessor of BBK Education Electronics/Little Genius Limited Technology), each operating independently. In order to increase the responsiveness of the three factories, the headquarters has decentralized some marketing and after-sales rights; the three factories regularly reconcile accounts with the headquarters and allocate a certain percentage of their annual profits to cover the operating costs of the headquarters' functional departments.[5]
As the group's business continued to improve, Duan Yongping felt that the time was ripe to let go completely. Therefore, at the beginning of 1999, based on the previous situation of the three factories operating independently, the group was further split into three companies with independent equity and personnel. From then on, the computer and video game factory, telephone factory, and AV factory became completely independent companies with their own equity and personnel structures. However, at that time, the three companies could still share about 80% of the original BBK channels, and the brand operation of BBK was still managed by the headquarters.[5]
Oppo's subsidiaries include OnePlus, and Realme is now a mostly independent operation.[6][7][8] Vivo's subsidiaries include iQOO (a sub-brand of Vivo).[9][10] It also marketed Blu-ray players, headphones, headphone amplifiers and smartwatches under Oppo Digital brand.[11][12]
BBK Electronics' headquarters and production base were located in Chang'an, Dongguan.[14] It was the biggest taxpayer in Chang'an.[14]
In Q1 2017, BBK Electronics shipped 56.7 million smartphones, surpassing Huawei and Apple to become the 2nd largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, behind Samsung.[15]
In 2020, BBK Electronics represented by Oppo, announced its involvement in independent research and development of chips.[16] Vivo also followed up to manufacture chips, mainly in cooperation with MediaTek.[17]
As of October 2022, BBK Electronics's Chinese-market website redirects to its subsidiary, Guangdong Little Genius Limited Technology Corporation, a manufacturer of smartwatches marketed for children.[18]
