OnePlus-Oppo Merger to Dilute the Quality of Devices, Experts Say

This announcement comes amid OnePlus’ Nord CE launch in India and other markets as its new affordable smartphone.

OnePlus will continue to operate as an independent brand.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint/Arnica Kala)

OnePlus has officially announced its merger with Oppo on Wednesday, 16 June. Through an online blog post, co-founder and CEO Pete Lau said that OnePlus decided to further integrate its organisation with Oppo after seeing positive impact from the existing collaboration.

However, both OnePlus and Oppo will continue to operate as independent brands. This announcement comes amid OnePlus launching Nord CE in India and other markets as its new affordable smartphone.

Lau in the blog post said, "the deeper integration with Oppo, OnePlus would get more resources at hand to bring even better products for customers."

He also pointed out that one of the changes could be “faster and more stable software updates” that are often demanded by customers due to delay in regular updates in case of older OnePlus phones and unreliable experience provided even on newer models.

What Changes Can You Expect?

OnePlus will no longer launch phones with its own HydrogenOS (what we know as OxygenOS) in the Chinese market and instead use Oppo’s ColorOS.

According to a report by Android Police, it seems that OnePlus 9 Pro’s Android 12 beta has a very close resemblance to ColorOS.

It is worth noting that the company has already switched to Oppo’s Color OS in China.

OnePlus' upcoming Nord 2 model is also expected to be rebadged as Realme X9 Pro which is likely to go official in China with a Snapdragon 870 chipset and in the global markets with a MediaTek Dimensity 1200 processor.

OnePlus Nord CE 5G is a major step back in terms of a few things on the checklist – a processor is a step down, the build isn’t as premium and there are less cameras than before.

Devinder Maheshwari, Chief Business Officer, Beebom believes that users can expect more budget, mid-range, and wearable devices from OnePlus in the near future. "As was the case with Huawei and Honor in the past, we will see many Oppo products being rebranded to OnePlus products in the coming months. The OnePlus Watch, Nord N200 5G, and other mid-range devices are already rebranded Oppo devices with minor changes here and there," he said.

Merger to Dilute The Quality of OnePlus Devices

Several experts claims that OnePlus will lose its identity as it will no longer be the one taking sole ownership of how to do things and going against the trend.

Maheshwari told The Quint that the merger will dilute the quality of OnePlus devices.

Explaining the reason, he said, "someone who bought OnePlus for its reliable hardware and clean software at a modest price will look around for better options now. But others, who previously heard that OnePlus is an amazing brand and offers great products in the premium mid-range segment, could be attracted to their budget and mid-range devices expecting a pretty similar experience. Will that be the case, though? Probably no. We can expect OnePlus' software update cycle to be in shambles over the coming years.."

Talking from a business perspective, Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group, CMR, said as the India smartphone market becomes increasingly hyper-competitive, OnePlus will stand to gain with its tighter integration with OPPO.

"By tapping into, and leveraging OPPO's R&D capabilities, it will be better positioned for market success with its recent focus on horizontally-differentiated product offerings across price-segments," Ram said.