What OnePlus Exiting the US Market Means for Current Users
Even if you don't own a OnePlus device, their exit might impact your future purchases.
When I first started covering tech, OnePlus was the brand to beat. It was never an Apple or a Samsung, but that's what it had going for it: The company made high-quality smartphones with enthusiast features at reasonable price points. I wouldn't even have called it an underdog, necessarily. It didn't have much "market share," but it was winning in the eyes of the tech community.
Fast-forward a decade, and the situation couldn't be more different. OnePlus is officially dead in much of the world, as the company announced it will no longer produce new phones for the U.S. or Europe. This change didn't happen overnight: In recent years, OnePlus slowly stopped making phones for enthusiasts and started chasing mainstream flagships at flagship prices. And while it may have had some success, the U.S. smartphone market still looks roughly the same as it did when OnePlus first started—it's all about Apple and Samsung. Now, the company isn't just lagging behind in the U.S.: It no longer exists.
If you don't own a OnePlus device, you might not think this impacts you much, but it does. One fewer company in an already limited market means even less competition for Apple and Samsung than before. Google and Motorola are really the only two other companies making Android devices for the States, and who knows where they go from here. But the biggest impact, of course, is to current OnePlus users. Whenever you own the product of a company that decides to exit the market, there's uncertainty, confusion, and concern. If you're a OnePlus user in the U.S., here's what you need to know:
Where do OnePlus users go from here?
The good news is that OnePlus isn't leaving U.S. users in the lurch. In the company's "Notice of Business Adjustment," it confirmed it will continue to support existing devices with software updates, security patches, and "after-sales" support, per your device's warranty. For the immediate future, it shouldn't feel like OnePlus is gone at all. Your phone will still get updates; you'll be protected from security vulnerabilities; and OnePlus will service your phone if something happens to it under warranty.
Perhaps the biggest change will come once Android 17 arrives on OnePlus devices. OnePlus announced that, rather than continuing to support its OxygenOS software, the company will enroll users with eligible devices into ColorOS, the operating system its parent company Oppo uses. OnePlus users won't transition to ColorOS until ColorOS 17, its take on Android 17. "Legacy models" that don't support ColorOS 17 will instead stay on OxygenOS and receive software maintenance, but no new feature updates.
While it is a separate OS, ColorOS is quite similar to OxygenOS, especially these days. It comes with a familiar UI and many of the same features, though different regions get different app distros—with some going so far as to call it bloatware. ColorOS has never launched on a U.S.-based device, so I can't say what it'll look like for U.S. OnePlus users, but it is possible ColorOS will add apps and services to your device that aren't currently there. As such, some users may find they miss the old OS after updating, or that they don't want to transition at all. Luckily, OnePlus says that users will be able to both decline the update, and roll back to OxygenOS if they don't care for ColorOS.
It's still early days, so there are plenty of questions left for OnePlus to answer. I'll update this post with any news we get, so OnePlus users can continue to plan accordingly.