Hans Zimmer scores Oppo ringtones

After overtaking long-time leader Huawei in the Chinese smartphone market, Oppo is making more moves to position itself as a premium mobile handset maker. In its latest salvo, the brand has secured celebrated music composer Hans Zimmer to create ringtones and notification sounds for its Find X3 Pro, which it announced on Thursday (March 11).

The brand's move follows that of Netflix, which had Zimmer upgrade its ta-dum sound in August last year.

Zimmer—whose accolades include an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, three Grammys, an American Music Award, and a Tony—has created sounds that are inspired by the Find series’ human-centric innovation and spirit of exploration, according to the company. (The sounds themselves are under wraps until the phone hits the market near the end of the month.)

The company is also emphasising a claim that the phone is the first Android device to capture, process and display 1-billion-colour images. To underscore the point, the company has launched the 2121 Future Photography Project, which its global brand ambassador, Academy Award-winner Eddie Redmayne, will contribute to. Redmayne will also feature in a collaboration with National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore, who will curate an 'Endangered Colour Campaign'. Finally, Oppo also announced it will support the National Geographic Society's Photo Ark project, which was founded by Sartore.

Oppo shipped 33.8 million units in Q4 2020—the fourth highest of any smartphone company. The company says it is now localised across over 40 markets and it claims it saw strong growth in key markets in 2020, tripling its smartphone shipments for Western Europe and Japan.