The software that made OnePlus fans choose OnePlus is going away. According to a Smartprix report citing veteran industry tipster Yogesh Brar, Oppo is discontinuing both OxygenOS and Realme UI entirely. All future OnePlus, Realme and Oppo smartphones will ship with a single Android skin: ColorOS.
The move is part of what the report describes as an “aggressive restructuring” aimed at cutting the cost of maintaining three separate software teams under the BBK Electronics umbrella. None of the three companies have officially confirmed the changes.
This has been coming for five years
The merger isn’t sudden. In 2021, OnePlus co-founder and Oppo chief product officer Pete Lau announced that OxygenOS and ColorOS would share a unified codebase. The stated goal was combining OxygenOS’s speed and simplicity with ColorOS’s deeper feature set. OnePlus said at the time that OxygenOS would continue to exist as a distinct experience.
In practice, the two skins became increasingly difficult to tell apart. OnePlus had already killed HydrogenOS, its Chinese counterpart to OxygenOS, years earlier in favor of ColorOS domestically. What started as a China-only strategy is now reportedly becoming the global default.
OnePlus is shrinking its footprint too
The software consolidation is only one part of a broader operational retreat. According to the report, OnePlus is narrowing its focus to just two markets: India and China. In India, the company has already merged its after-sales support into Oppo’s service network. Standalone OnePlus repair centers are being phased out.
In Europe, the signs are even more visible. Several regional OnePlus websites, including those in Germany, France and Spain, now redirect consumers toward Oppo products. The official UK OnePlus storefront lists products as “Out of stock” with no indication of restocking. OnePlus devices that were previously available have been pulled from shelves without replacement.
Realme is moving in the opposite direction geographically but toward the same corporate destination. The brand is reportedly winding down its China operations to focus on international markets. There are also rumors of a full merger between OnePlus and Realme, which would reduce BBK’s consumer-facing smartphone brands to two: Oppo and Vivo.
Realme users won’t notice much. OnePlus users will.
For Realme owners, the transition to ColorOS would feel minor. Realme UI was always built closely on top of Oppo’s codebase, and the visual differences between the two were cosmetic at best.
For OnePlus users, it’s a different story. OxygenOS wasn’t just software. It was the reason a generation of Android enthusiasts picked OnePlus over Samsung and everyone else. The clean interface, the speed, the absence of bloatware, the deep customization options. That experience defined the brand from the original OnePlus One in 2014 through the company’s “Never Settle” era.
Recent OxygenOS versions had already drifted so close to ColorOS that the distinction was largely branding. But removing the name entirely strips away the last visible marker of OnePlus’s independence.
What’s unclear
No timeline has been given for when existing OxygenOS and Realme UI devices would migrate to ColorOS, or whether the change applies to phones already in the market or only to future releases. It’s also unclear how Oppo plans to handle the software transition for current owners, whether through an OTA update or only on new hardware.
Until Oppo, OnePlus or Realme issue an official statement, this remains a single-source report. But the physical evidence, shuttered storefronts, merged service networks, redirected websites, all points in the same direction. The OnePlus that existed as an independent disruptor has been folding into Oppo for years. This report suggests the final step is underway.
