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OnePlus, Realme, and Oppo are splitting up as parent company BBK attempts to de-risk its India business.

China’s largest smartphone manufacturer BBK Electronics Corp has restructured its India operations by making three of its major brands – Oppo, OnePlus and Realme – independent entities with sales accounted for in their own books, three senior industry executives said.

The idea is to de-risk the business from the current and future government action against Chinese firms, they said.

BBK has transferred sales and distribution of OnePlus and Realme into their legal entities OnePlus Technology India and Realme Mobile Telecommunications (India), respectively.

Oppo Mobiles India – which was handling sales and distribution of all the three brands till recently – will continue sales of its namesake brand, the executives said.

“BBK is cautious that the way the government is taking action against Chinese companies, any severe and further action against Oppo Mobiles India will impact the business of three large brands,” one of them said. “Hence, it wants to separate the three businesses.”

Oppo Mobiles India, in its latest regulatory filings to the Registrar of Companies (RoC) in May, said there has been extensive government actions against the company including money frozen in bank accounts to the tune of Rs 2,082 crore. Its auditors have warned that “material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”, the company said in its RoC filing.

It was already known that Oppo Mobiles was under the government lens for alleged custom duty evasion of Rs 4,388 crore.

Oppo Mobiles India has also said in the filings that it has received letters of intent from its holding company and its external commercial borrowing provider that they will continue to finance the company to ensure that it remains operational.

These RoC filings were made along with the company’s financial report for 2021-22. The company has not made any further filings to RoC, including FY23 financial and auditor reports.

Executives said Oppo Mobiles India is also changing the way it operates.

It will now directly sell to large retailers and distributors, with the latter selling to the small retailers. It ran such a pilot in Delhi.

Earlier, Oppo Mobiles used to sell to entities (called as agents in the industry parlance) owned and run by Chinese in several states, who would in turn sell to the retailers.

Oppo Mobiles will continue to manufacture all the three smartphone brands.

OnePlus and Realme are also looking to partner with Indian contract manufacturers after requests from the government, the executives said.

OnePlus Technology India has started to sign billing, sales and distribution agreements with large retail chains and their distributors from this month, while Realme Mobile Telecommunications started doing it earlier.

Emails sent to Oppo Mobiles India, OnePlus Technology, and Realme Mobile remained unanswered as of Monday press time.

BBK also owns the Vivo and iQoo smartphone brands, which operate through a separate entity, Vivo Mobile India. Vivo has a separate factory in India.

LOSSES HALVED IN FY22

The May RoC disclosures by Oppo Mobiles India reveals the company in 2021-22 grew revenue from operations by 33.5% to Rs 57,160 crore, while its net losses reduced to Rs 46 crore from Rs 97 crore in FY21. This includes the combined financials of Oppo, OnePlus and Realme sales.

“Oppo’s financial performance presents an initial impression of brilliance, with a 50% reduction in losses and a notable revenue surge,” said Mohit Yadav, founder of business intelligence firm AltInfo. “Yet, a deeper examination involving the substantial debt and vendor rebates reveals a contrasting scenario, raising uncertainty about the company’s future performance in the upcoming 2-3 fiscal years.”

Vivo, Realme and Oppo are among the top five smartphone brands in India in market share while the more premium OnePlus competes with Apple and Samsung in the premium segment.

Oppo Mobiles India in the latest RoC filings said it has received income-tax notices for assessment of incomes for previous years, some of which have been complied, and that the company is also taking legal recourse on custom duty evasion cases.

In the filings, Oppo Mobiles said the company’s auditors have flagged that the company’s liabilities are significantly higher than the total assets along with adverse debt-equity ratio and adverse current ratio as of March 2022. And the auditors have said the company’s cash flow position is impacted, whereby everything taken together a “material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”.

Oppo Mobiles has also said it has received a letter of intent from its holding company and its external commercial borrowing provider that they will continue to finance the company in light of these circumstances and “to further infuse cash in the form of either debt or equity in order that the company’s long-term and short-term cash requirements are met and company is able to continue its business as a going concern”

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