The flagship killer is dead. Well, almost.
OnePlus started in 2014 as a cheap way to get around Samsung and Apple. Now? It’s barely hanging on.
The brand is a subsidiary of Oppo, which itself is one of the biggest phone makers in the world. Recently, OnePlus started laying off people everywhere. In Europe, workers aren’t just losing jobs; they are getting moved to Oppo or Realme, two other Oppo-owned brands. We verified this. Dozens of LinkedIn profiles changed between March and June.
Oppo gave WIRED a vague statement.
“Realme will focus on overseas markets… OnePlus’ product roadmap in China remains unaffected.”
Notice the China part. They didn’t confirm if OnePlus is gone from the US or Europe. But the silence speaks volumes. No one answered questions about software updates for old phones either. Rumor has it that OxygenOS might get replaced by Oppo’s ColorOS. If that happens, the distinct identity of OnePlus disappears in a system update.
OnePlus didn’t comment. Carl Pei, the co-founder who left in 2014 to build Nothing, stayed silent too. Nothing declined to comment when asked.
One anonymous source said they got laid off in April. The entire New York office vanished. Management went first.
“This was a ‘from the top’ decision with no input.”
Why? No one wants to say. But geopolitical tensions don’t help. Huawei and ZTE are banned. Even TP-Link is getting heat from Texas officials. Is OnePlus leaving because of politics? Maybe. Or maybe because people aren’t buying phones anymore.
Shipments dropped 11 percent last quarter. Apple and Samsung grew. Everyone else shrank. Even Xiaomi, Vivo, and Oppo struggled. It’s a global memory crunch. AI data centers are eating up all the RAM, causing chip shortages. Phones got expensive.
OnePlus tried to play premium. They jacked up prices. Their watch went from $330 to £500. Phone prices in India surged too. They used to have market share. Now? It’s gone.
In the US, carriers are everything. T-Mobile dropped OnePlus in 2016. That was the end of the line for serious sales.
2016: 1 million shipments in the US.
2019: Under 130k shipments.
That is a 90% drop. Nabila Popal of IDC says OnePlus never really led in the US. But carriers drive 66% of US sales. You miss them, you die.
The strategy shifted entirely to China. In 2016, 56% of their volume was Chinese. Add Asia Pacific? That’s 91%. They abandoned the West.
They tried the classic razor-thin margin trick. Sell cheap to grab attention. Then raise prices. It worked for a bit. But they couldn’t compete with the big two. Apple and Samsung command higher prices. OnePlus couldn’t. They tried to be premium, but they weren’t.
US consumers are missing out. Chinese brands have cool tech like silicon-carbon batteries. But without carriers, it’s a locked garden. OnePlus’s US share fell from 1.6% in 2010 to 0.0% in 2017. Apple and Samsung own 76% now.
Join HTC. LG. Sony.
OnePlus is another name that won’t matter much next year.
The game is consolidated. Two players left. And plenty of dead brands behind them.
We lost a choice.
