The fiercely competitive smartphone market is getting smaller, and so is the corporate distance between two of its biggest players. After years of operating independently to capture the budget and youth markets, realme is officially being reintegrated into OPPO as a sub-brand.

Reports from Reuters and Chinese outlet Lei Feng Net confirmed the move, signaling a major restructuring within the BBK Electronics empire. BBK, a Chinese conglomerate that owns or backs some of the world’s biggest smartphone brands — including OPPO, vivo, OnePlus, iQOO, and realme — has long operated a “house of brands” strategy. In a market described as “contracting,” the two companies are pooling resources to cut costs and streamline operations.

Essentially, realme is following the OnePlus playbook: evolving into a specialized wing within the broad OPPO umbrella while keeping its distinct identity.

​The global strategy: ‘Slimming down’

According to reports out of China, this is a family reunion. realme founder and CEO Sky Li — who previously served as a vice president at OPPO before establishing realme in 2018, and under whom we worked during our own stint at OPPO — will reportedly head up this new sub-brand division.

The leadership shift is clear. Yet despite the organizational shakeup, realme’s product roadmap reportedly remains intact. New devices are still expected to launch on schedule, and the brand’s market positioning will continue unchanged.

​The integration promises strategic synergy. In plain English, that means sharing supply chains, research and development labs, and potentially, after-sales networks. For consumers, the biggest win could be service; the Chinese report explicitly mentions realme fully integrating into OPPO’s after-sales system. Imagine walking into an OPPO service center to fix your realme GT — that’s the future this merger is betting on.

​The local twist: ‘No merging as of now’

​While the international mandate is clear, the implementation on the ground in the Philippines is a different story.

​When reached for comment, OPPO Philippines gave us at REVU the corporate birds-eye view, confirming the integration is about “amplifying synergy.”

​”In a strategic move to better harness resources … realme is being integrated into OPPO as a sub-brand,” OPPO Philippines told us. “This enables OPPO, realme, and OnePlus to present a unified and enhanced offering — delivering more innovative, differentiated products and a more streamlined, customer-centric service experience globally.”

realme Philippines, on the other hand, is pumping the brakes. When asked about the news, the response was surprisingly candid: “Globally, it’s a strategic move … Locally, we’ll still keep doing what we’re doing. No merging as of now and we’ll still have separate resources from OPPO.”

This scenario isn’t uncommon. Global directives often take months or fiscal years to trickle down to regional offices. For now, the local realme team is operating business-as-usual, likely to prevent confusion among its network of dealers and retailers.

​What about TechLife? For those wondering if your smart rice cooker or robot vacuum is part of this deal: It’s not. realme Philippines clarified to REVU that TechLife was spun off into a completely different entity last year. It has separate resources and teams, keeping it safe from the blast radius of this smartphone consolidation.

The ‘Oga’ supergroup

This move solidifies what industry insiders call the “Oga” group strategy, uniting OPPO, OnePlus, and realme.

For years, BBK’s greatest weapon was the illusion of choice: Buy an OPPO for the camera, a realme for the value, or a OnePlus for the nerd cred — and the money still went to the same place. But maintaining three separate corporate structures, marketing machines, and human resource departments is costly.

By folding realme back in, OPPO is tightening the ship. The challenge now is differentiation. If a realme phone uses the same charger, the same interface, and the same service center as an OPPO unit, the brand will need to fight harder than ever to prove it’s not just “OPPO Lite.”

For Filipino consumers, nothing changes today. But don’t be surprised if, by this time next year, your next realme unboxing comes with an OPPO warranty card.

---