Is it a merger? A melding? Does it even matter?
On Wednesday, smartphone vendor OnePlus announced it's "further integrating" with Oppo, a sibling smartphone company popular in China. The two entities will be melding more of their organizations, the announcement says, though OnePlus will continue to operate independently.
It’s long been known that OnePlus has ties with Oppo. Both operate under the Chinese company BBK Electronics. As a result, Oppo design features have popped up in OnePlus phones before.
Still, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau is calling the integration with Oppo a "turning point for the future" of the smartphone vendor. “With this deeper integration with Oppo, we will have more resources at hand to create even better products for you,” he says. “It will also allow us to be more efficient, for example, bringing faster and more stable software updates for OnePlus users.”
It may also mean a greater Oppo-ification of OnePlus devices. Lau himself points out he began overseeing product strategy for both companies last year.
“Since then, we have integrated a number of our teams together with Oppo to better streamline our operations and capitalize on additional shared resources,” he adds. “After seeing positive impact from those changes, we’ve decided to further integrate our organization with Oppo.”
But in the same announcement, Lau stresses that OnePlus will remain independent. “We will continue launching OnePlus products, holding events (hopefully in person soon) and engaging directly with you for feedback through the same OnePlus channels as before. OnePlus’ commitment to you remains the same,” he writes.
Nevertheless, a lot has already changed for the brand. In 2014, OnePlus arrived ready to take on Apple and Samsung with affordable, feature-rich “flagship killer” smartphones. Since then, the company has branched out into low-end and premium phones, which can reach to over $1,000.