OnePlus announces merger with Oppo

OnePlus will continue to operate independently

Under the terms of the deeper partnership, the two smartphone brands will share teams and resources, as they have done more discretely in the past. Nevertheless, OnePlus will be able to “operate independently.”

OnePlus has been quietly working with Oppo for years and this latest step seems to be more about the business side of things, so not much should change from a consumer perspective. At least for the time being, anyway. 

In a statement, OnePlus said the newly announced merger means it will "have more resources at hand to create even better products for you." The move should also allow it “to be more efficient, for example bringing faster and more stable software updates” to its smartphones. 

How it plans to achieve that will remain to be seen, however. OnePlus and Oppo currently operate independent software teams, so unless the two become more closely aligned in the future it’s hard to see how that could be done.

The OnePlus and Oppo merger may also lead to more affordable OnePlus phones. The Nord 2 is expected to be a rebranded Realme X9 Pro — Realme is another Oppo subsidiary — and last year’s Nord N100 was a rebranded Oppo A53.

Only time will tell what the true outcome of this merger will look like for consumers. But at the moment, it sure looks like Oppo and OnePlus are aiming to be the next Huawei and Honor.