OnePlus has now announced its merger with Oppo publicly, years after working closely with the Chinese company. Although this is a huge announcement it’s unsurprising given that both companies, which are owned by BBK Electronics, integrated their R&D teams last year and Pete Lau was given additional responsibilities at OPPO to handle product strategy. However, both OnePlus and Oppo continue to operate as separate brands independently.
OnePlus decided to “further integrate” its organization with Oppo “after seeing positive impact” from the existing relationship, according to co-founder and CEO Pete Lau explaining in a forum post. He further mentioned that one of the changes could be “faster and more stable software updates,” which are frequently requested by users due to delays in regular updates on older OnePlus phones and unreliable experiences on newer models.
OnePlus was also co-founded by Lau and Carl Pei, both of whom worked for Oppo before the new company was set up in December 2013. The latest move, however, mainly appears to reveal how OnePlus and Oppo work together to develop their products and utilize more internal resources.
It’s worth mentioning, for the Chinese variants of its flagship smartphones, OnePlus replaced its native OxygenOS with Oppo’s ColorOS earlier this year. Last year, the company also introduced the HeyMelody app, which provided update services for both OnePlus and Oppo earbuds.
Meanwhile, the company has confirmed to MySmartPrice that OnePlus smartphones will continue to use their custom Android-based OxygenOS in global Markets. It’s obvious to see models launched under the OPPO brand in certain markets and then under the Oneplus brand in rest.
So there you have it, BBK Electronics! Many of you are probably already familiar with the parent firm of prominent smartphone brands such as Vivo, Realme, Oppo, and OnePlus. After years of letting OnePlus operate as a flagship killer brand, it now appears to be taking more influence over the company. Over the years, we’ve seen a great deal of impact from Oppo on OnePlus. As a result, it will be fascinating to see how this merger turns out.
Only time will tell how this duo will affect customers in the long run. However, it appears that Oppo and OnePlus are trying to be the next Huawei and Honor in the smartphone space.