Oppo launches OnePlus X Clone or was it the other way round

Since 2014, when OnePlus took center-stage with the launch of its OnePlus One smartphone the ownership of the company has been a bit murky. While OnePlus has maintained that it is indeed a start-up which shares investors with OPPO, time and again we have heard of very close ties between the two companies.

In fact Pete Lau left his position at OPPO and founded the OnePlus brand, which incidentally is 100% owned by Oppo Electronic, an investment firm and separate from Oppo Mobile. But its quite curious that OnePlus' owner shares a brand name with its rival. The company later clarified that both share investors, but maintained that OnePlus is a separate brand.

Flash-forward to late 2015, reports began to emerge the Oppo may be planning to merge with OnePlus to get a foothold on western shores. But the rumors were quickly swept away.

And now we have the Oppo A30, which is an exact clone of the OnePlus X. The Oppo A30 has been listed on the company's official website for China and its exactly the same as the champagne white variant of the OnePlus X. Now why would OnePlus let Oppo rebrand and sell its smartphone?

Even if we forget the cosmetic treatment, both the OnePlus X and Oppo A30 share the same specs, a 5-inch 1080p display, 13MP/8MP cameras, Snapdragon 801 with 3GB RAM, 16GB expandable storage, 4G LTE support right down to the 2525 mAh battery.

Even through all this murkiness, OnePlus has maintained that its a separate company from Oppo. For us though it hardly makes a difference, OnePlus makes good phones which are cheaper than the competition, come with good build and decent set of features for the price. If indeed it was Oppo that needed an inroad to other markets for expansion as OnePlus, so be it. But now they need to get their act straight.

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Via: GSMArena