Last week OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said in a forum post that the company will “further integrate” with Oppo, but didn’t elaborate on how that’d work in practise. Now, leaker Evan Blass has obtained a document that serves as a talking points memo for use by OnePlus PR, and it explains the integration in plainer terms.
“With the integration, OnePlus becomes a brand within Oppo, however will continue to function as an independent entity,” reads the most pertinent answer. The memo also says that Lau’s role as chief product officer at Oppo will make him responsible for the product strategies of both Oppo and OnePlus.
This isn’t particularly surprising. Here’s what I wrote last week following Lau’s post:
Reading between the lines, it sounds like OnePlus will essentially be treated like a label of Oppo’s, maintaining a separate consumer-facing operation but with business activities merging in areas beyond product development.
The memo confirms that this is essentially what’s going to happen, removing any need to read between the lines. “With the merging of both the firms, we will have more resources at hand to create even better products,” it says. “It will also allow us to be more efficient in our operations.” OnePlus and Oppo had already merged their R&D departments around the turn of the year, so the further integration is more to do with streamlining day-to-day business operations.
OnePlus customers shouldn’t necessarily expect too much to change — the shared ownership and supply chain meant that there have been similarities between Oppo and OnePlus phones for as long as OnePlus has existed. But now that OnePlus is acknowledging the relationship out loud instead of acting like it’s a scrappy startup, all eyes will be on the company’s next round of flagship phones.
