Is it the End of OnePlus?

So, the ‘enthusiast’ brand we knew and loved is no more. With its merger with Oppo, it is now a ‘mainstream premium’ brand. But is this the end of OnePlus?

OnePlus has been copying designs from Oppo phones for a long time. OnePlus 3 looks exactly the way the Oppo R9 Plus and the OnePlus 5 looked exactly like the Oppo R11. But this wasn’t some kind of deal-breaker because OnePlus had a different USP than Oppo, its OS, the Oxygen OS. People loved the ‘near-stock android’ look and this became the identity for OnePlus apart from being the ‘flagship killer’.

But when OnePlus announced that they’ll be joining Oppo as its sub-brand and will also be merging the R&D for Oxygen OS and Color OS, it broke the hearts of many hard-core OnePlus fans and tech enthusiasts like me.

So, how does this change it from an ‘enthusiast’ brand it used to be to a ‘mainstream premium brand’? Just one reason, OnePlus runs Oxygen OS based on Color OS now, which is a mainstream feature-rich (bloatware-rich ahem) OS. So now, Oxygen OS isn’t an enthusiast element anymore. Even though the UI elements in OnePlus remain the same, the functionality has been completely changed to that of Color OS starting from Oxygen OS 12.

So, coming back to the first question, is this the end of OnePlus? No. Actually, this is the best time to be alive for OnePlus!

OnePlus registered its highest-ever shipments in India in 2021 and led the affordable premium segment (INR 30,000 - INR 45,000). And not just in India, but OnePlus had hit a mark of 10 million global sales by the end of 2021. How?

Well, they understood the Indian market and even though they don’t have any major USP, they have the brand value! OnePlus Nord series phones were the best-selling phones in India as they were priced around the 30,000 to 45,000 INR mark.

The second reason is again, becoming the ‘mainstream’ brand. OS merger might have been made for this particular reason, to target the mainstream market. As the mainstream audience is larger than the enthusiast audience, OnePlus is enjoying good sales just because of it.

So for now, it seems like OnePlus will still be a tough competitor, even after its change in ‘Color’, pun intended. Only time will tell if OnePlus will become the new Oppo, or will it beat its own parent company.

Courtesy: Economic Times of India, TechWiser