The two O’s of the smartphone industry have decided to finalise their merger — Oppo and OnePlus revealed that the latter will become a sub-brand of the former. While the news isn’t exactly a surprise, it’s an interesting strategy that may even bring OnePlus hardware to more countries.
A OnePlus waiting to Oppo
Both Oppo and OnePlus are owned by the same holding company, BBK Electronics. So what the merger really means, is that BBK is pooling its resources to sell more devices and ultimately make more money.
“[W]e have integrated a number of our teams together with Oppo to better streamline our operations and capitalize on additional shared resources,” says Pete Lau, co-founder and CEO of OnePlus, and chief product officer for Oppo. “It will also allow us to be more efficient, for example, bringing faster and more stable software updates for OnePlus users,” he details.
Don’t expect to see any OppoPlus hardware out in the wild just yet, however. According to Lau, OnePlus will continue to stand as its own brand, with its own devices and events. We reckon it’ll function in a similar way to the Huawei/Honor relationship, in that Honor was treated as its own brand (not anymore though).
Historically, OnePlus has delivered quality hardware at an affordable price, but it’s lacked market penetration around the globe. We haven’t seen many of the devices here in SA, but Oppo’s established presence should mean we’ll see ‘em soon enough.
Source: Engadget