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Comment by bwang29 | Hacker News Reader

For those who don't know, OPPO's main line of business is selling cellphones now. They seem to do pretty well in China, and they are the parent company of OnePlus, which many thought is a competitor to OPPO. It's actually not easy to find information of OPPO and OnePlus's relationship unless you query the commerce database in the Chinese government, where you will also fine that VIVO and OPPO are affiliates..which are under control of BBK Electronics, who shipped 56.7 million smartphones in 2017 Q4 surpassing both Huawei and Apple to become the 2nd largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, just behind Samsung.

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> It's actually not easy to find information of OPPO and OnePlus's relationship unless you query the commerce database in the Chinese government, where you will also fine that VIVO and OPPO are affiliates

Oneplus sold its phone on the back of the fact that it was a "startup". Then came this:

According to the Chinese government's documentation, the only institutional stockholder in OnePlus is Oppo.Although Lau initially denied that OnePlus was a wholly owned subsidiary of Oppo, upon release of the regulatory filings they admitted that they are owned by Oppo and are "in talks with other investors" (although nothing has been announced to date).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnePlus

The opacity of Chinese market was documented in another recent post too:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16726355

The amazing thing about the scam is that Chinese companies were filing correct numbers in China and fake revenue numbers in US. But with information not easily accessible people got away with it.

So actually their ceo is a liar who tells stories of a small company worthy of support by idealistic customers while being funded by a billion dollar enterprise? Happy i didnt buy their phone...

Samsung is a corrupt company as well. Huewai may be spying on us. I guess you pick your poison.

Yeah. Then again, just because others do bad things too it’s not more acceptable for the one we‘re talking about right now.

One Plus have the easiest phones to unlock the bootloader and play around with roms. Along with being amongst the few phones out there with an official ubuntu port. Guessing with a stock OS its likely not good, but they make life easy for the average tinkerer as opposed to many other phone companies.

It's common knowledge for those who are familiar with Chinese tech industry that OPPO, VIVO are originated from a company called BuBuGao(BBK in English) which is created by a guy name Duan Yongping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duan_Yongping). One plus is founded by another guy that BBK invested as a VC.

Does this mean some or all of Elephone, Doogee, Xiaomi, Ulefone etc are BBK brands?

I have seen the cheap prices for all sorts of Chinese Android phones on online shops, and wondered if each brand was real. It seems less likely knowing that OnePlus wasn't quite as it appeared.

Kudos to OnePlus marketing team I guess - certainly had a few people thinking they were a startup for sure.

xiaomi is definitely an independent company. they make a bunch of non-phone products as well

From [0]:

>Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, OPPO Digital designs and markets high quality digital electronics that deliver style, performance, innovation, and value to A/V enthusiasts and savvy consumers alike. The company's attention to core product performance and strong customer focus distinguishes it from traditional consumer-electronics brands.

>With products that speak for themselves and relying on word-of-mouth, OPPO Digital does not have any dedicated Marketing and Sales personnel. We have spent most of all energy on product design and customer service. We pride ourselves on servicing all our customers right here in Menlo Park, California.

>Disclaimer: OPPO Digital USA does not carry any mobile phone products. We are not able to respond to any inquiries related to mobile phone products.

I'm pretty sure this is a different OPPO.

[0]: https://www.oppodigital.com/About.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppo_Digital says:

OPPO Digital (Chinese: OPPO影音)[1] is an independently operated overseas division sharing the brand name OPPO with OPPO Electronics, both owned by Chinese company BBK Electronics

[1] http://www.oppodigital.com.cn/

Nice find, seems I'm mistaken.

It's news to me that they manufacture anything other than phones.

This announcement seems to be US-centric; doesn't seem they (or OnePlus) will stop making phones.

It's almost news to me that they manufacture phones (I happen to remember some sort of Oppo smartphone with a camera that you can physically rotate to take front/back photos, but that's about it). My only real experience with them has actually been their AV equipment.

Just a small clarification. Oppo (phones) is not the parent of OnePlus in the sense that Oppo (phones) controls anything with OnePlus.

The relationship is more that Oppo (phones) is owned by Oppo Electronics, which also owns a part of OnePlus. So OnePlus is kind of a competitor to Oppo, just not very fiercely.

> they are the parent company of OnePlus

No. BBK Electronics owns Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBK_Electronics

OPPO is also big in developing markets, for instance in Africa .

SE Asia as well. Huge in Vietnam, for example

So that explains why there are so many OPPO and VIVO phone stores in Manila malls. I always viewed them as a crappy brands but I'm quite impressed to see that they are part of the second largest mobile phone maker.

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