The mobile phone industry is grappling with immense downward pressure, prompting OPPO to once again bring its external brand back into the fold.

On January 7, 2026, realme officially announced that, to bolster synergy and resource integration, the realme brand would rejoin OPPO as its sub-brand.

According to Jiemian News, following realme's integration back into OPPO, it will merge with OnePlus. Li Bingzhong, CEO of realme, will oversee the entire sub-brand operations, while Li Jie, President of OnePlus China, will retain his current responsibilities. Post-reorganization, OnePlus will primarily target the domestic and select overseas online markets, whereas realme and OPPO will cover non-Chinese overseas territories.

It's noteworthy that five years ago, OnePlus, which had been operating independently, was already merged into OPPO as its sub-brand. Today, OnePlus is recognized for its high cost-performance ratio and commands significant market influence.

OPPO's decision to recall realme is clearly aimed at replicating the rapid growth in shipments that OnePlus experienced post-integration. However, it's crucial to recognize that both OnePlus and realme are essentially known for their high cost-performance ratio, and their return is primarily geared towards expanding OPPO's scale and market presence.

In an era characterized by inventory stagnation (indicating a market with minimal to no growth potential), OPPO's more urgent need is to achieve a breakthrough in the high-end market. Relying solely on recalling realme and OnePlus won't alleviate OPPO's concerns about penetrating the high-end market.

01. realme 'Loses Momentum' and Encounters Growth Bottleneck

In fact, realme initially served as OPPO's overseas sub-brand. In May 2018, Li Bingzhong, former Vice President of OPPO and Head of OPPO's Overseas Department, founded realme, primarily targeting overseas markets like India.

Leveraging OPPO's robust support in channels, supply chains, and other areas, realme successfully entered the market upon its launch. CounterPoint data reveals that realme 1, launched in May 2018, sold over 400,000 units within two months, capturing a 1% market share in the Indian smartphone market.

After establishing a foothold in overseas markets with its mobile phone products, realme gradually distanced itself from OPPO. In July 2018, Li Bingzhong resigned from OPPO to become realme's CEO, and realme also detached from OPPO to become an independent entity.

Focusing on high cost-performance ratio, realme has witnessed aggressive growth in the global mobile phone market over the past few years. Strategy Analytics data indicates that in 2021, realme became the fastest smartphone brand globally to reach 100 million units in sales. In November 2023, Xu Qi, Vice President of realme, Global Marketing President, and China President, revealed that in its fifth year of operation, realme's global mobile phone sales exceeded 200 million units.

However, as the smartphone market's dividends (referring to market benefits or gains) gradually diminish, realme finds it increasingly challenging to sustain its previous growth trajectory. IDC data shows that in the Q3 2025 Indian smartphone market, realme ranked fifth, with shipments declining 10.9% year-on-year. In contrast, vivo's shipments in the Indian market surged 20.7% year-on-year during the same period, ranking first.

realme hasn't just faced setbacks in the Indian market; its performance in the Chinese market has also been lackluster. According to 'RD Observation' data, in 2024 and the first ten months of 2025, realme's market share in the Chinese mobile phone market was 1.22% and 1.26%, respectively, significantly trailing behind leading brands.

Due to poor market performance, realme has experienced internal turmoil. In December 2025, reports emerged that realme had initiated a large-scale layoff plan, affecting outsourced, on-site, and regular employees in the first round. On January 7, 2026, Jiemian News cited insiders as saying that realme is preparing for a second round of staff reductions, potentially impacting research and development, marketing, and other sectors.

As the saying goes, 'What got you here won't get you there.' realme's sudden predicament is largely attributable to its adherence to the 'Dare to Leap' concept. When the mobile phone market was thriving, realme's high cost-performance ratio products were indeed appealing.

However, the downside of high cost-performance ratio is thin profit margins, which also makes it difficult for realme to accumulate profound technological resources. As market dividends gradually shrink, the smartphone industry has entered a phase of differentiated competition. Many manufacturers are showcasing their competitiveness through full-scenario ecosystems, self-developed chips, and imaging collaborations. In this context, it's challenging for realme, which continues to promote the 'Dare to Leap' concept, to persuade consumers to pay a premium for its products.

02. In the Era of Stagnant Growth, OPPO 'Unites Its Forces'

Against the backdrop of a gradually saturating market, not only have small and micro brands like realme faced development hurdles, but smartphone giants like OPPO have also come under immense downward pressure.

A research report by Canalys reveals that in the Chinese mobile phone market in 2020, OPPO's shipments were 58.1 million units, a 12% year-on-year decline. It was against this backdrop that OPPO chose to recall OnePlus.

In June 2021, Liu Zuohu, founder of OnePlus and Chief Product Officer of OPPO, stated that to further leverage synergistic advantages and better integrate resources, the OPPO and OnePlus teams would fully merge, and OnePlus would become an independent brand under OPPO.

By the end of 2022, Liu Zuohu further announced that OPPO was officially entering a dual-brand era, with OnePlus positioned as OPPO's pioneering brand focused on performance. In the future, OPPO's online presence would be represented by OnePlus. Meanwhile, OPPO pledged to invest 10 billion yuan exclusively in OnePlus over the next three years and provide support in terms of technology, channels, and services.

After joining OPPO, OnePlus underwent a significant transformation in its brand image, abandoning its 'small and beautiful' approach and adopting a high cost-performance ratio 'machine sea tactics' (launching a large number of products). For instance, since launching the Ace product line positioned as a 'performance pioneer' in April 2022, OnePlus has launched 15 related products, averaging about four per year.

Indeed, under OPPO's robust support, OnePlus has achieved a 'smile curve.' In November 2025, Li Jie, President of OnePlus China, revealed that OnePlus's cumulative mobile phone sales in 2025 increased by 41% year-on-year, with a market share exceeding 3.3%.

Driven by OnePlus, OPPO has escaped the negative growth trap. Data compiled by the digital blogger 'Wisdom Chip Insider' shows that from W1 to W51 in 2025, OPPO's cumulative sales accounted for 106% of the previous year's total, not only achieving positive growth but also ranking first in terms of growth rate in the Android market.

Given OnePlus's successful performance post-integration, OPPO naturally views realme, which has been 'wandering' outside, with a more rational perspective.

At this stage, realme has hit a growth bottleneck and is facing increasing financial pressure, which OPPO cannot overlook. Instead of continuously providing financial support to realme, OPPO might as well follow OnePlus's growth trajectory and recall the brand.

After 'uniting its forces,' OPPO's resources in channels, supply chains, after-sales, and other areas can be efficiently reused by the three brands, potentially achieving a '1+1+1>3' effect.

03. Stalled in High-End Market Penetration, OPPO Trapped in Mid-to-Low-End Market

After recalling the OnePlus brand, OPPO's market influence has indeed improved. However, it's worth noting that due to the continuous contraction of the smartphone market scale, mobile phone companies find it difficult to follow the old path of scaling up and instead need to achieve a breakthrough in the high-end market.

Xiaomi, which also started with a high cost-performance ratio, deeply understands this. As early as 2020, Xiaomi proposed a high-end market strategy. The Xiaomi 10, launched in February of that year, had a starting price of 3,999 yuan, a 33.34% increase from the previous generation. In October, Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi 10 Ultra with a starting price of 5,299 yuan, setting a new record for Xiaomi's mobile phone starting prices at that time.

In the following years, Xiaomi continuously strived for high-end market penetration. In February 2022, Lei Jun, founder, chairman, and CEO of Xiaomi, stated that Xiaomi had formed a high-end market strategy working group and planned to 'capture the first place in the domestic high-end mobile phone market share within three years.'

In fact, OPPO has also realized that high-end market penetration is the inevitable path for the second half of the smartphone competition and has made targeted adjustments.

Internally, to avoid internal competition, OnePlus's high-end models have started to make way for OPPO's flagship models. For example, the latest OnePlus 15 no longer features the same Hasselblad imaging system as OPPO's flagship models.

For the consumer market, OPPO has created the Find series products, with the X series featuring sell points such as Hasselblad imaging, Danxia color reproduction lenses, and flagship processors; the N series is positioned as an all-around foldable flagship, with prices exceeding 10,000 yuan.

However, unfortunately, OPPO has struggled to demonstrate dominance in the high-end market. Counterpoint data shows that in the Chinese market for smartphones priced over 600 US dollars (approximately 4,190 yuan) in 2024, OPPO ranked sixth in market share, even lagging behind Xiaomi.

For instance, the initial sales performance of the OPPO Find X9 series was not ideal. According to 'RD Observation' data, the OPPO Find X9 series sold over 350,000 units in the first 15 days, only about 80% of the previous generation's sales. In contrast, the Xiaomi 17 series sold over 1.2 million units in the first half month, exceeding 110% of the previous generation's sales during the same period.

The primary reason for this is largely due to the lack of core competitiveness in OPPO's flagship mobile phones. Through its collaboration with Hasselblad, the Find X series does possess outstanding imaging performance, but it has not significantly differentiated itself from competitors.

In comparison, smartphone manufacturers like vivo and Xiaomi not only collaborate with top imaging companies like Zeiss and Leica but also possess self-developed processors, enabling powerful image processing capabilities and faster image capture speeds.

Not only do they lack differentiated technologies, but OPPO even struggles to ensure basic product quality. In October 2025, several OPPO Find X series and Reno series users reported on social media platforms that their phone screens suddenly displayed green lines without any apparent reason.

Although OPPO provided a satisfactory solution, the 'green line' incident still exposed shortcomings in its quality control system to some extent, deviating from users' expectations of 'zero defects' for high-end flagship mobile phones.

In conclusion, against the backdrop of gradually disappearing industry dividends and intensifying competition in the smartphone industry, OPPO does need to recall external brands to achieve business synergy and thereby stabilize its market influence.

However, it should be noted that at this stage, OPPO's biggest challenge is not a decline in market influence but stalled progress in high-end market penetration.

It is certain that to avoid affecting the development of its main brand, realme and OnePlus will solely focus on the mid-to-low-end market after their return.

Going forward, OPPO can only rely on its own strength to address the challenge of high-end market penetration.