OnePlus is leaving the US and European markets by the end of this week. A report from earlier this week and the company confirmed to Android Central that it has withdrawn from these regions. Additionally, OnePlus is killing off OxygenOS, with the company noting that its phones will use ColorOS, which is made by OnePlus’ parent company OPPO.
It’s not quite the end of OnePlus; Earlier in the week, I had a one-on-one meeting with Ishita Grover, Marketing Director, OnePlus India, where I got confirmation that the India business is not affected by these changes. OnePlus will also maintain its China division, but will no longer have a global presence outside of those two countries.
The move itself is not surprising. The smartphone industry as a whole has had to contend with rising sales and rising costs this year, and estimates suggest that storage and memory prices will remain inflated until at least 2028. Obviously, OPPO found OnePlus’s global business unsustainable as a result of these headwinds, so it pulled the plug.
On the contrary, its India business is doing relatively well. From the start, India has had a large share of OnePlus’ global market, with the country regularly exceeding 50% of the company’s total shipments. If anything, OnePlus has doubled down in India in recent months, launching the Nord CE6, Nord CE6 Lite and the budget-focused OnePlus N6.
As for existing users, the biggest change will be the switch to ColorOS. After 11 years, OnePlus is shutting down OxygenOS and future phones will launch with ColorOS. Existing phones will migrate to ColorOS with a platform update, and OnePlus says it will honor all existing update guarantees — these phones will get ColorOS instead of OxygenOS.
Honestly, it’s long overdue; since then OxygenOS has merged its codebase with ColorOS I didn’t see the point of having two interfaces in 2021. For all intents and purposes, OxygenOS 16 is identical to ColorOS 16, and barring a few minute tweaks to the design and unique AI features, there’s no difference between the two.
With OnePlus now out of most global markets, there is a distinct lack of choice in the Android ecosystem, particularly in North America and Europe. Like anything, new entrants are slowly gaining momentum, but they’re not selling the majority of their devices in the US, and it’s sad to see OnePlus make such an unceremonious exit.
