Oppo has confirmed the movements that had been circulating for weeks about the future of OnePlus and Realmein an official announcement that sheds light on the future of each brand.
The result is almost a mirror image between China and Europe: where one brand disappears, the other stays. And vice versa.
What Oppo has confirmed. The distribution is like this:
- in ChinaRealme closes. OnePlus and Oppo remain.
- In Europe and SpainOnePlus closes. Realme and Oppo remain.
- Realme UIRealme’s customization layer, disappears and merges with ColorOSthe one from Oppo. Realme users will be able to voluntarily update to ColorOS, although there is still no confirmation of which model range this update will reach.
- The commitment to support and updates for devices already sold is maintained in both cases.
The important nuance. It doesn’t matter how it was told in China: Realme does not disappear in Europe. It is an easy distinction to lose if international coverage simplifies the headline as “Oppo closes Realme” without further context, because the announcement is born in a Chinese key. In Spain and the rest of Europe, Realme continues to sell normally.
The brand that is leaving our market is OnePlus, something that has already been talked about for months and that we counted a few days ago as something imminent.
Between the lines. That Oppo closes different brands in each region depending on the strength they have there says a lot about its strategy.
- Realme has been the most aggressive brand in terms of price for years in markets such as Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, with a commercial pull especially among the young public.
- In China, on the other hand, it is Oppo that dominates the terrain and Realme weighs less: It is the third after Huawei and Apple.
Closing where it does not pay off and maintaining where it does work is a purely pragmatic and accounting balance decision.
There is a second reading that the announcement has not yet clarified: it would not be strange for Oppo to distribute its brands by range in addition to geography, leaving Realme the entry and mid-range and reserving the high range for Oppo. The CEO suggests something like this, whose statement sent by the brand includes the phrase “OPPO’s European business remains stable, with strong momentum in the premium flagship segment.” On the other hand, the Realme that arrive in Spain in the coming months could be the successors of the low and mid-range OnePlus that the brand continues to manufacture in China with another logo.
And now what. The announcement closes, on paper, the months-long mystery about the future of OnePlus in Europe. What remains to be seen is the fine print: what happens with Realme outside of Spain, up to what range the migration to ColorOS reaches and if the price distribution between Realme and Oppo confirms the hypothesis of the low range disguised as Chinese OnePlus.
Featured image | Xataka
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