The merger will help pool more resources and formalise the working relationship of the two smartphone manufacturers

9 PRO

The OnePlus 9 PRO launched in March 2021. (Credit: OnePlus)

Mobile phone manufacturer OnePlus has officially merged with its sister smartphone brand Oppo in a move to create better products and bring faster and more stable software updates for users.

Both the smartphone brands owned by Chinese conglomerate BBK Electronics have already been closely collaborating for some time. BBK Electronics also owns other smartphone brands like Vivo and Realme.

The merger is said to be targeted mainly for pooling more resources and formalising the working relationship of the two smartphone manufacturers.

Pete Lau and Carl Pei, the co-founders of OnePlus, had worked together in the past at Oppo. Lau, who is currently OnePlus’ CEO was appointed as the chief product officer at Oppo in May 2020.

In a blogpost, Lau wrote: “As many of you know, last year I took on some additional responsibilities to oversee product strategy for both OnePlus and OPPO. Since then, we have integrated a number of our teams together with OPPO to better streamline our operations and capitalize on additional shared resources.

“After seeing positive impact from those changes, we’ve decided to further integrate our organisation with OPPO.”

“I’m confident that this change will be positive for our community and our users. With this deeper integration with OPPO, we will have more resources at hand to create even better products for you.”

Lau revealed that the OnePlus brand will operate independently like in the past and that its products will be continued to be launched.

The OnePlus CEO also said that OxygenOS will continue to be the operating system for the brand’s global devices outside of the Chinese market.

In March 2021, the brand had launched OnePlus 9 Series, its most advanced flagship smartphones range. Apart from that, the company had also launched OnePlus Watch, its first connected wearable for global markets.