OnePlus is dead in the US. Did she ever get the chance?

After eight years of operation, OnePlus today announced that it is exiting the US. It’s bittersweet, as the brand has been on a comeback tour of sorts OnePlus 15 is excellent Widely praised (although still very expensive) OnePlus unlocked.

The writing has been on the wall for a while now. T-Mobile stopped stocking flagship OnePlus phones after 2022, instead deciding to only carry its low-end devices, and Verizon’s run with OnePlus lasted just two years, from 2020 through 2021. Although it continues to release flagship phones, OnePlus’ US footprint is starting to fade. In January, Android addresses It even claimed that the brand has been completely dismantled, though OnePlus has denied that report.

This outcome does not seem inevitable. In 2014, when the OnePlus One launched, almost every tech enthusiast I knew was buying the phone. There was intense enthusiasm for OnePlus that was hard to find anywhere else, and it used this community-based approach to develop and grow a long-term and loyal fan base. For a while, it was practically impossible to call any other phone a “good deal” when there was also a OnePlus phone.

But most of the sales were online only, directly from OnePlus. When it decided to officially launch via US carriers, it was probably doomed from the start.

OnePlus first launched on a US carrier in 2018, and according to T-Mobile, Nearly 200,000 customers It was already using OnePlus phones on its network before it officially carried the devices. This is a far cry from Samsung or Apple’s numbers, which It represents an estimated 90 percent Of all the phones sold at US carriers in 2020, but there was no case for T-Mobile trying to capture OnePlus’ growing passionate fan base.

OnePlus has grown its loyal fan base primarily through its “Never Settle” moniker, which means you shouldn’t have to settle for poor specs when buying a budget phone. I used the phrase “Leading killer“To describe this ratio between price and performance, fans have taken it up. Especially in 2014, near the end.”The two-year phone contract era“, people were begging for a device that you could buy outright without being tied into a long and unhappy relationship with your carrier.

But that’s not how people buy phones in the United States. Here it’s about carrier deals and, specifically, bill balances. The credit bill model gets the phone into your hands right away, often with no upfront cost, and the price of the phone is cushioned into your phone plan for 24 to 36 months. T-Mobile is giving you a brand new 256GB iPhone 17 Pro today for just $4.16 per month on top of your phone plan. If you’re an AT&T subscriber, you can get the same phone for just $2.78 per month, as long as you trade in a phone and “upgrade to a qualifying unlimited plan.” And yes, this onboarding plan starts at $80 per month. If you switch carriers early, you’ll be charged the remaining retail cost of the phone.

You can see why this might motivate the carrier to focus on selling expensive flagships and not “affordable” flagships. Carriers want to give you the idea of ​​a deal, and if you feel like your new phone costs less than three dollars a month, that is feel Much better than paying $600 out of pocket, even if you pay much more over time.

What made OnePlus attractive was mainly its opposition to this model. What’s the value of a $600 “flagship killer” versus a $1,200 flagship if there’s no appreciable difference in price? Carriers need you to stay on their premium plans, and if they only have $600 hanging over your head instead of $1,200, they’ll have less incentive to carry those devices. Add to that what was mentioned 75 percent of all smartphones sold in carrier stores are now iPhoneswith Samsung makes up another 15 percent or soAnd there’s not much pie left.

The flagship line that has done well for OnePlus in the US is the very affordable Nord series. Achieving 428 percent growth for the company in the first half of 2021. But after it lost its deal with T-Mobile in 2022, it was very difficult for OnePlus to increase volume. The US phone market relies on carriers in almost every way, and without T-Mobile stores stocking phones, it’s harder for OnePlus to justify selling the Nord here.

The OnePlus ethos has always been about value for money. This fundamentally contradicts the incentive system in the US phone market, which prioritizes trapping users in long-term relationships. OnePlus was really fighting for the scraps here. OnePlus tried to kill off the flagship phone, but in the end it was the flagship phones sold by carriers that killed OnePlus.