Vivo sub-brand iQOO rumoured to become independent next year | 91mobiles.com

The iQOO brand was established by Vivo in a quest to build a smartphone brand whose key focus was gaming. In the initial days of existence, iQOO produced some hardcore affordable gaming-oriented smartphones, but its current lineup speaks otherwise. iQOO’s portfolio now encompasses more devices than ever before and has also branched out from its original quest. iQOO now offers mid-range and upper mid-range phones. Amidst this shift, rumours that have cropped up suggest that iQOO would be separating from its parent brand Vivo and will function as a separate entity under BBK Electronics.

iQOO could separate from Vivo next year

The iQOO brand is a gaming-oriented sub-brand of Vivo. Just like Redmi and POCO were sub-brands of Xiaomi, Honor was a sub-brand of Huawei and Realme was a sub-brand of OPPO. All these brands were initially rolled out with some set objectives. Redmi, for example, was a budget-centric alternative to Xiaomi’s main lineup of phones. Honor was a cooler alternative to Huawei’s own product line and was launched to cater to the youth. Realme also began as an OPPO sub-brand targeted towards the youth. Most of these brands went on to become independent entities.

This happens to be a common-place trend when it comes to Chinese manufacturers. Redmi and POCO branched out of the Xiaomi umbrella in 2019 and 2020, respectively. A similar pattern can be expected from iQOO divergence from parent company Vivo. According to the rumour supplied by the Weibo user @Arsenal (via Gizmochina), iQOO will separate from Vivo by April 2022. iQOO will function as an independent brand under BBK. It is expected that Vivo and iQOO will function closely together despite following differentiated business paths. Sharing resources at disposal could be a big example of such close functioning. iQOO might also quickly expand its portfolio once it becomes an independent brand.