OnePlus and OPPO have reportedly merged hardware R&D teams

OnePlus and OPPO have reportedly merged their research and development teams in an effort to “better maximize resources.” OnePlus is majority-owned by OPPO, which itself is a subsidiary of BBK Electronics.

OnePlus said in a statement, via Android Authority, that it’s in the process of further integrating some R&D capabilities within OPLUS, its long-term investor.

“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.”

While the statement doesn’t outright confirm the two have completely merged their R&D teams, it might be as close to confirmation as we’re going to get. This is a move that likely already happened internally a while back, but now the news is public-facing.

OnePlus already shares a lot of infrastructure with OPPO (manufacturing, backends, etc.) and the companies also share a lot of the fruits of hardware R&D (see how similar the OnePlus 8 Pro is to the OPPO Find X2 Pro). The biggest difference between OnePlus and OPPO products has always been the software (OxygenOS on OnePlus phones versus ColorOS on OPPO phones) and that will remain distinct between the two.

The move will likely result in even better alignment among the brands. Realme, which is also overseen by investor group OPLUS, will likely benefit as well. Improved integration with teams could mean ideas not only become better, but developed quicker for market.

A report from DoNews, which first broke this report, likens the integration between OnePlus and OPPO to the relationship between Xiaomi and Redmi, which share the same R&D system.

For now, the integration is purely related to hardware, not software, so each brand will seemingly be distinct with their own flavor of Android. That doesn’t mean, however, that we won’t see similarities shared by the different takes on Android.

The post OnePlus and OPPO have reportedly merged hardware R&D teams appeared first on xda-developers.

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