BBK nurtures brands, vanishes

For decades, B-schools formulated brand strategies such as co-branding, single-identity, and multi-branding. Each one had its pros and cons, some succeeded, some failed. One of the models was to market multiple brands in the same segment. Volkswagen Group does it admirably with Volkswagen, Audi, Lamborghini, and Porsche, “each targeting a different luxury or performance segment.” BBK Electronics, a China-based group, which was deregistered in 2023, went several steps ahead. It gave birth to multiple smartphone brands, grew them globally, made them profitable, and left them to co-exists independently, or in a dependent manner.

With renowned brands such as OPPO, Vivo, OnePlus, Realme, and iQOO, BBK pursued a strategy that seemed inefficient and unviable in theory, but was resilient and profitable in practice. It allowed multiple brands to grow in parallel, often selling products at the same prices to the same set of buyers, via overlapping retail channels, and sometimes competing and cannibalising each other. For years, this rivalry was not treated as a flaw but as a feature. We talk about BBK today because its brands now present themselves as independent, and co-dependent entities with new growth trajectories.

According to recent reports, Realme operates as a sub-brand within the OPPO umbrella, which signals another recalibration rather than an abandonment of the portfolio model. The shift offers a window into how one of China’s most prolific consumer electronics ecosystems quietly rewrote, and then revised the rules of brand strategy. The deregistration itself was a decision that was a result of legal and regulatory systems across various markets. “In essence, BBK’s deregistration was a corporate restructuring, allowing its major smartphone divisions to evolve into separate, though historically linked, companies,” states an analysis of the corporate action.

BBK was never a consumer-facing name. Founded in 1995, the group operated largely as a holding and coordination structure, incubating brands that were given autonomy over marketing, channel strategy, and product philosophy. OPPO and Vivo emerged as the early pillars, building scale in China’s offline retail networks before expanding overseas. OnePlus was positioned as a performance driven, enthusiast brand with a global outlook. Realme leaned towards price disruption, and youth marketing, particularly in India. iQOO became Vivo’s performance-focused sub brand, while Imoo, known as Little Genius, addressed a different category with children’s wearables.

What united these brands was not a common consumer message but a shared manufacturing backbone, supplier ecosystem, and engineering culture. What separated them was identity. In most markets, consumers were rarely told that these brands shared a common lineage.  The advantages became visible in the emerging markets, especially India. As smartphone growth shifted from the metros to the smaller cities, and from premium buyers to value-conscious upgraders, BBK aligned different brands to different layers of the market, and to different sections of the buyers. OPPO and Vivo invested in offline retail relationships, and brand visibility. Realme focused on online sales velocity, and aggressive pricing. OnePlus cultivated a premium yet accessible image.

This implied that BBK’s brands could collectively occupy more shelf space, more price points, and more consumer mindshare than a single consolidated brand could. It meant that when one of the brands faced regulatory, operational, or reputational pressures, the others could operate with limited disruptions. In markets where policy scrutiny of Chinese firms intensified, this structural redundancy functioned as a hedge. India’s numbers underline how it worked. In the third quarter of 2025, Vivo led with nearly 20 per cent of the overall market share, according to Omdia. OPPO followed with nearly 13 per cent, and Realme, OnePlus, and iQOO featured in the top vendor set, if not always among the top three.

Taken together, BBK linked brands accounted for a substantial portion of the volumes, without domination by a single brand. Collectively, they accounted for a majority share, even if they were considered as distinct firms. According to official data, BBK’s brands generated combined revenues of INR 81,870 crore in India in FY2022-23. The profitability among the various entities differed, as some faced margin pressures and regulatory disputes. It did not matter much as the combined revenues illustrate the economic weight of the BBK’s ecosystem, which operated like a unified group.

The Chinese market is fiercely competitive but strategically essential. As per the IDC data, in the third quarter of 2025, Vivo shipped 11.8 million smartphones within China, which gave it an implied share of nearly 17 per cent in a more than 68 million market. OPPO and its aligned brands remained close contenders, and kept the BBK lineage firmly within the top tier of the domestic vendors even as competition from Huawei, Apple, and Xiaomi intensified. The contrast with the US is stark. In the American market, BBK’s brands are peripheral. StatCounter data from late 2025 shows that Apple and Samsung account for over 80 per cent of smartphone usage share, with Google and Motorola trailing distantly.

OPPO and Vivo have no meaningful presence, and OnePlus remains a niche player. This imbalance helps explain why BBK’s brand proliferation strategy was never optimised for the US. Its payoff lay in markets where volume growth, fragmented retail, and rapid consumer churn rewarded optionality over purity. Yet the strategy d allied costs. Multiple brands meant duplicated marketing budgets, parallel sales teams, and overlapping product portfolios. As global smartphone growth slowed, and margins tightened, the inefficiencies were harder to ignore. The deregistration of BBK Electronics was widely interpreted as an effort to simplify the corporate structure, and reduce regulatory exposure, particularly as Indian authorities increased scrutiny of the Chinese firms’ financial practices.

The decision to incorporate Realme under OPPO marks a further step in this direction. According to media reports, the move is aimed to save costs, and share resources better, while preserving the distinct brand positioning. In effect, the portfolio is being compressed. The brands still exist, but the back end is more unified. What makes the BBK case unusual is that it allowed the multiple brands to coexist without strict segmentation. In many markets, consumers vied to choose between OPPO, Vivo, and Realme products that were priced closely, and sold through similar channels.

BBK was willing to tolerate cannibalisation, and felt that the ecosystem mattered more than internal efficiency. Transsion, a Chinese group behind Tecno, Infinix and Itel, pursued a multi-brand strategy in the emerging markets. BBK’s execution was broader, global, and sustained. Its evolution suggests that this was not a static doctrine. It expanded aggressively when the times were good. As conditions changed, it consolidated around shared infrastructure and cost discipline. The identity layer remains plural. For business strategists, the lessons from BBK’s strategy is that in the volatile, high volume emerging markets, optionality is an asset.