Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- In the wake of losing market share to other brands, and big device cancellations, a new report suggests that OnePlus may exit smartphone production.
- This move would follow OPPO’s announcement it was restructuring Realme as a sub-brand again.
- OnePlus has yet to formally respond to the allegations, and so far we’ve yet to see these claims substantiated.
Healthy competition in the smartphone industry is a wonderful thing, fostering innovation, pushing limits, and keeping designs interesting and fresh. But this is also one brutal market to find your niche in, and time after time, we’ve seen major players close up shop, even after years of operation. Just the other day, we heard that ASUS was was moving away from making new phones, and now a new report claims that OnePlus could be the next big phone brand to go the way of HTC, LG, and so many others before it.
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OnePlus, as you may know, stems from BBK and OPPO. And already this year, there’s been some big movement with OPPO’s holdings, as the company announced that it was reintegrating Realme as a sub-brand (via Reuters). But now, an incendiary new report from Android Headlines claims that OPPO isn’t done cleaning shop, and is about to shutter OnePlus as we know it.
For the moment, none of this is official — let’s be very clear on that. OnePlus hasn’t offered any public indication that it intends to do anything but continue business as usual. Android Authority has already reached out to the company for comment on these allegations, and while we haven’t heard back just yet, we’ll update our coverage here with any response we do receive.
But as for this report, Android Headlines makes the case that OnePlus has been struggling for market share for years now, and after some especially disappointing performance in India and China, the parent company may be looking to cut its losses. A $14B cash injection from OPPO failed to change that trajectory, and recent rumors of the cancellation of the OnePlus 15s and OnePlus Open 2 foldable are offered in support of the theory that OnePlus is effectively giving up on smartphones.
Ryan-Thomas Shaw / Android Authority
Like other brands that have shut down their smartphone operations, OnePlus would reportedly keep honoring its support commitments for existing hardware, continuing to release software updates — but if there’s any truth to this theory, we may coming to the end of new handset launches.
That’s the conclusion Android Headlines comes to, anyway — so is there any chance this is actually happening?
Well, the sales figures are what they are — OnePlus hasn’t been having a great few years, but that’s also no proof that it’s not interested in reversing that trend. But this report also hasn’t just emerged out of nowhere, and there have definitely been some recent rumblings that could suggest things aren’t quite right in the house of OnePlus.
For instance, back near the start of the month when that news broke about OPPO and Realme, noted tipster Yogesh Brar posted to X that some kind changes would also be coming to OnePlus. Then, just this week, Brar has posted that a “popular brand is having internal issues and things might not work out for them,” before ending his teaser of a 200MP OnePlus flagship with an ominous “But…”
Rushil Agrawal / Android Authority
None of this amounts to corroboration, but the fact that multiple sources across the industry are expressing varying degrees of concern about the prospects OnePlus faces going forward makes us at least curious to dig in a little deeper.
For now, we wouldn’t count OnePlus out of the race until the company says as much. While it’s had its ups and downs, it’s still a brand with a lot of fans eager to check out its latest handsets every year. What have been your favorite OnePlus devices? Share your picks, and tell us why you hope OnePlus sticks around, down in the comments.
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