OnePlus officially announced its integration with Oppo — this is what it could mean for users

• OnePlus CEO, Pete Lau, has announced the company's merger with Oppo.
• The Chinese smartphone maker has been associated with Oppo Electronics since the very beginning.
• This would mean sharing resources, technology and teams between the two.

It seems like OnePlus has decided to settle with Oppo. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of OnePlus, Pete Lau, officially announced their merger in the company’s blog. It might come out as a surprise to many, but the smartphone brands OnePlus and Oppo were already owned by the same Chinese group -- BBK Electronics.

Although Lau hasn't used the word 'merger' in his post, it appears a lot like one as both brands are joining hands to work closely by sharing resources and merging teams.

To recall, OnePlus was founded by former Oppo vice president Pete Lau and Carl Pei. Lau took a second role as Oppo's chief product officer in May 2020 and Pei announced his exit, in October, from the company. After Pei's exit, this is the biggest news from OnePlus. As per Lau's post, it was during his new role when OnePlus began to work closely with Oppo.


"As many of you know, last year I took on some additional responsibilities to oversee product strategy for both OnePlus and OPPO. Since then, we have integrated a number of our teams together with OPPO to better streamline our operations and capitalise on additional shared resources. After seeing positive impact from those changes, we’ve decided to further integrate our organisation with OPPO," says Lau in his blog post.

Here's what it means for OnePlus fans and customers

Lau has emphasised that despite joining hands with Oppo, OnePlus will operate as an independent brand. This means we might not see much shapeshifting in the way OnePlus operates as both the companies have been working closely under BBK already. This blog post is not a merger announcement, but an update of how OnePlus and Oppo will be working together going forward.

From what we've derived from the blog post, the change is likely to be positive for OnePlus as it will be aided with additional resources from Oppo, which has a bigger scale of operations. Oppo has a larger portfolio of smartphones ranging from affordable to premium segment, whereas OnePlus has recently entered the under ₹25,000 segment with its Nord line-up. This reflects in the overall market share as Oppo grew by 11% YoY in the period January-March 2021 to retain the fifth spot, whereas OnePlus was the leader in the premium segment in the months of April-June 2020.

The shared resources and talent will not only help OnePlus to scale its business but will also help in cutting down the cost of its products. That's because it will get access to Oppo's research and development, supply chain, production line etc.

As Lau mentioned, "we will have more resources at hand to create even better products for you. It will also allow us to be more efficient, for example, bringing faster and more stable software updates for OnePlus users."

So it's likely that with more resources, you might get to see more timely and stable software updates from OnePlus. Also, the company has clarified that it will be sticking to OxygenOS on its products and not the ColorOS that's used on Oppo phones.

In China, the OnePlus 9 series runs on ColorOS, but in other markets, it still runs OxygenOS. Going by the statement given by the company, it might stick with the same strategy where its phones outside of China will have its much-loved OxygenOS.

Apart from resources, Oppo and OnePlus may also share the hardware and technologies used in their products. For example, we might see an even faster charging tech on OnePlus phones going forward as Oppo has showcased 125W fast charging while OnePlus is still using up to 65W.

In addition to this, one of the not so positive changes we might see is seeing identical devices from the two companies as it's been the case prior to this announcement as well. So it's possible that we get to see similar products with different branding and software. That's not actually a bad thing, but as users/customers we like to have variety and options and have expectations from a brand like OnePlus that's stood out with its values and vision.


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