From an Android-era favorite to a shell on the verge of becoming completely irrelevant, what went wrong for OnePlus?
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Enthusiastic beginnings end in tears.
I don’t need to tell you that in the past, a brand like OnePlus really felt like a breath of fresh air. A brand that offered the best hardware, clean software and a community that was the backbone of it all.
The innovative invitation system generated excitement; added intrigue. He created a cool club that only the most “informed” people were a part of. You, the buyer, were chosen, and that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before from a smartphone maker. Hardcore fans helped build the brand basically from scratch, although this image was cleverly cultivated given that OnePlus was originally backed by Chinese conglomerate BBK from its inception.
I think this has created a bit of a strange situation, as while it’s great to have a following of this grassroots style, it doesn’t always translate into major changes in market share. Instead, with such a small group of fans, you can have scale issues without alienating your existing customer base.
Not to diminish the enthusiast space, it is very small compared to the undoubted riches of the “average buyer”, and that is where perhaps OnePlus made mistakes in the early phases that effectively set up an inevitable fall. A market disruptor needs to continue disrupting or risk having someone else steal their thunder.
That’s not to say buyers are wrong. No, this was about building a brand at the expense of the people who care most about the true complexities of the devices they buy.
In recent years, the enthusiast market we once knew has declined dramatically. Fewer phones that offer the best of everything are not viable when targeting a shrinking market segment. This problem has gotten worse since in the early days of Android there weren’t as many people using smartphones. Now they are ubiquitous.
Fighting to break with the established order
One of the biggest problems OnePlus has faced from the beginning has been getting into the established package of buyer options. The initial invitation system generated buzz, but prevented people from buying on a whim. It was an intentional purchase driven by initial interest, research, or even word-of-mouth recommendations.
Global availability has been something the brand has struggled with. Partnerships with carriers have been short-lived or non-existent for long periods.
If you want to enter the US market as a complete unknown, you still need direct cooperation with major telecom operators. T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T still account for more than 90% of all sales through postpaid contracts and financing plans.
Yes, OnePlus had a brief foothold thanks to a partnership with T-Mobile, but without an endless marketing war chest and slow growth, that faded and ceased. The US market is, for all intents and purposes, a three-device market. Apple and Samsung are fighting for the premium segment, while Motorola and Google are trying to take over the rest.
OnePlus has never surpassed 1% market share worldwide, despite being an Android darling and arguably getting many more column inches than similar OEMs with a larger user base.
First-mover advantage lost
OnePlus had lightning in a bottle at the beginning of the smartphone era. Offering cheap, high-powered phones that were different from those of the competition turned out to be a masterstroke.
However, that first-mover advantage was lost in just a few years. The idea of an “iconic killer” became almost redundant as other brands simply adopted a similar strategy.
To be sure, sales faltered and slowed as the growing smartphone space became crowded with more competitors in the same price range. Brands like Xiaomi, and even cross-brand competition from Vivo, Realme, and parent company Oppo, stifled the impressive packages offered by OnePlus.
That’s great for us buyers, but not for OnePlus. A company that was still just a step in the mobile space in terms of market share.
The settlement era
The iconic “Never Settle” mantra was originally built on a razor-thin profit margin strategy: offering the fastest silicon available, great displays, super-fast charging technology and more at half the cost of an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy S-series phone.
Maintaining this price disruption required aggressive cost-cutting in other key areas, such as using cheaper camera sensors, skipping wireless charging, and skipping expensive IP waterproof certifications.
As OnePlus matured and attempted to capture mainstream buyers, while still ensuring long-time fans were satisfied, the company was forced to close these feature gaps, resulting in high-profile updates. like its multimillion-dollar imaging partnership with Hasselblad.
The addition of these premium components and the introduction of expensive brand partnerships inevitably forced retail prices to rise from the historical sweet spot of $400 to $600 to the premium range of $800 to $1,000. Once the price advantage disappeared, OnePlus was forced to compete head-to-head with dominant giants without the decades of premium brand value needed to justify those additional costs.
Always trying to offer the best specs for the price is expensive, as any deviation from that would be considered a downgrade. Sometimes it would mean that certain elements were neglected, such as the camera hardware.
It hasn’t always been about the hardware, either. A big problem has been the lack of optimization for new introductions. Cameras have long been a topic of controversy. Things like this have held back undoubtedly impressive packages.
This is a double problem: you have the ability, but execution would be the obstacle.
The consequences of the foundation
While we can point to many things, one pivotal moment arguably stands out more than any other.
In the eyes of fans, Carl Pei’s departure in 2020 could be seen as the catalyst for OnePlus’ downfall. Carl Pei left shortly after the launch of OnePlus Nord in October 2020. This came just a few months after Pete Lau took on a new role to oversee “brand synergy” between Oppo, OnePlus and Realme.
For 2021, Oppo and OnePlus had completely mergedand Lau then took over as Oppo’s chief product officer.while Pei founded another enthusiastic phone company, Nothing.
This was a critical period for the company.
But OnePlus 8 seriesThe writing was on the wall when OxygenOS 12 became a fork of ColorOS, which led to better software update support, but we lost the “clean” aesthetic that the company launched and was known for. It was the primary anchor that kept tech-savvy buyers loyal to the brand, serving as a pristine, user-focused alternative to the slower and very limited software options offered by competitors.
While ColorOS has since become a solid option. This transition period has affected OnePlus devices. Yes, it simplified BBK’s internal engineering process and improved long-term update timelines, but it fundamentally stripped OnePlus of its defining experience with OxygenOS. It also didn’t help that it wasn’t a seamless transition, as bugs and problems were rife from the start.
Too many form factors
Whether powered by Oppo or something else entirely, OnePlus has suffered from offering too many options and too many form factors in a bid to try and capture a larger share of the market.
We used to get one or two carefully designed OnePlus phones a year, a mid-cycle “T” update, and that was enough.
The lineup has become a confusing web of premium flagships, “Pro” models, “T” variations, and regional “R” variants, along with an expanding budget ecosystem that includes tablets and foldable devices from the Nord, Nord CE, and Nord N series.
Placing a cheap $200 to $300 plastic phone with a low-resolution screen next to an $800 flagship completely diluted the premium prestige of the OnePlus flagship, confusing everyday consumers and alienating loyal fans. Loyal fans who have even more options to choose from and who do almost all of the same things, many of them without compromise.
Stop Smoking Quietly on a Global Scale
In the end, whether intentionally or not, OnePlus has forgotten its audience. Each iteration has seen a price increase, alienating the original audience, but going head-to-head with premium brands that made no concessions in any major area, save for the Pixel series. For many, that could be a reason not to look at a OnePlus phone.
The community is ignored and everything indicates that OnePlus has suspended operations outside of China in recent months. The company has not confirmed anything publicly despite behind-the-scenes evidence that the outlook is not rosy.
Sure, the company could opt for radio silence, but that’s deafening. This not only hurts customers, who until recently were buying the impressive OnePlus 15but it also potentially harms the parent company. How can anyone trust Oppo to do right by customers if they can’t even be honest about what’s happening with a beloved brand? The answer is probably that you can’t.
The OnePlus era appears to be over, and while there were internal factors at play from the beginning, in some ways, the company only has itself to blame.
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