OnePlus collaborates with Oppo for R&D crew

Both Oppo and OnePlus are leading Chinese smartphone companies and both of them operate under the aegis of BBK Electronics. While OnePlus and Oppo commonly share many of their resources, it seems like the integration will go deeper. Both of these companies are now going to combine their R&D (Research and Development) crew with OPLUS, the investor team that monitors OnePlus, Oppo and Realme. Even before this, OnePlus has shared their manufacturing and supply chain with Oppo, which enabled them to produce leading-edge flagships for less money until they stopped doing that. The underlying device is also similar, the main difference between them being the software, with OnePlus running OxygenOS while Oppo runs ColorOS. 

Hence, we could soon be observing the purposes of this combination from future products of these brands. OnePlus, however, guarantees that it will operate independently of its sibling brands.

Here’s OnePlus’ official statement to Android Authority

To better maximize resources and further position OnePlus for growth, we are in the process of further integrating some R&D capabilities within OPLUS, our long-term investor. OnePlus will continue operating independently and working to deliver the best possible user experience for existing and future OnePlus users.

 

Oneplus and Oppo products have been close for a while

If you are into smartphone tech, it is pretty obvious to notice that OnePlus is relying on Oppo for its products. Last year OnePlus 8 Pro was obtained from the Oppo Find X2 Pro, and the only difference was in their hardware.  

The OnePlus Band is also identical to the Oppo band, or the upcoming OnePlus Watch, which is rumored to have a lot in common with last year’s Oppo Watch.

Beneficial Impact on consumers

With this unification, we could see OnePlus dropping out new products faster and probably with better implementations. On the negative side, the points of differentiation could be reduced to a minimum. We have previously witnessed that happening with Xiaomi and its sub-brands as well as associate brands. Xiaomi parts its R&D with Redmi and Mi sub-brands while Poco uses its R&D as a separate company.

Oppo has a hold on, affordable devices, OnePlus could utilize that to its profit for the Nord program. We'll be able to see more Nord devices at affordable prices this year .

Elsewhere, the latest report confirms that software is not a part of the R&D merger for now. I am not sure if anyone is surprised by this but hopefully, OxygenOS doesn’t get affected that much though.