Chinese smartphone brands Oppo and OnePlus announced plans to work more closely together in the future, seeking to free up resources and improve their respective product sets.

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said in blog post the company was at a turning point and it had decided to further integrate its organisation with Oppo: both are owned by Chinese electronics conglomerate BKK Electronics and Lau took over product strategy for each in 2020.

Since taking on the joint role, Lau said the brands had integrated a number of teams to streamline operations and capitalise on shared resources. After seeing “positive impact” from those changes, a decision was made to bring the two closer together.

“With this deeper integration with Oppo, we will have more resources at hand to create even better products.”

Lau added the move would allow the companies’ to be more efficient and bring faster, more stable software updates for OnePlus users.

Details on what exactly would happen as a result of the deeper integration were sparse and it is unlikely customers of both will see any immediate changes.

Lau added the OnePlus brand would continue to operate independently, launching separate products, holding events and engaging directly with customers.