OnePlus has made its niche globally by launching some competitive and affordable flagship smartphones. The market position of the brand can be compared to seasoned leaders like Samsung. Smartphones under OnePlus have been a hardsell on the market, which is why company follows the trend of making its devices obsolete when launching a new smartphone. On the similar lines, OnePlus’s recent flagship, the OnePlus 5T that is also one of the top selling smartphones in India, has been discontinued in North America. The device no more up for sale on OnePlus’s official website for the region.
OnePlus 5T is Out of Sale in North America: What are the reasons?
The reason behind this decision is that OnePlus received an overwhelming demand for the OnePlus 5T. Within four months since its launch in North America, the OnePlus 5T soared in sales making it hard for the company to make the ample units available to the buyers while prepping for the upcoming flagship, the OnePlus 6. The successor to the OnePlus 5T, the OnePlus 6 is slated to debut in Q2 2018. The phone has already been making rounds on the rumour mill with leaks and renders surfacing on the internet every now and then.
In contrast to its rivals like Xiaomi, OnePlus does not believe in mass production of its flagships. The company takes away the availability of its flagship when its successor is due to launch so that it can get better sales on the latest device. OnePlus turned to this model in 2016 when it introduced the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T. Reportedly, the OnePlus 5T is no longer up for purchase in North America on website’s official online store. However, potential buyers can still get it in the region via Amazon and other e-commerce websites.
In a conversation with Tech Crunch, Global Marketing Chief and General Manager of North America for OnePlus, Kyle Kiang said that the OnePlus sold out every single unit of the OnePlus 5T in North America, making up 25 percent of the company’s online sales. The company witnessed a whopping 139 percent growth in the North American market.
Many of the buyers in North America must be thinking of taking the alternate route of procuring the OnePlus 5T, but that would be a bad idea. The OnePlus 5T in other markets comes with different AC adapters that won’t comply with the standard followed in North America.
OnePlus 6: Expected Launch Timeline
The OnePlus 6 is expected to debut in the second quarter of 2018, sometime around May or June. The company followed similar launch timeline for its previous flagships, the OnePlus 3 and the OnePlus 5. The unavailability of the OnePlus 5T in some regions could push potential buyers into buying some other smartphone as the waiting time for the OnePlus 6 is of more than a month. Let’s take a look at the rumoured specs of the OnePlus 6 and gauge whether it is worth waiting for.
OnePlus 6: Rumoured Specifications and Pricing
The OnePlus 6 is tipped to feature a 6.28-inch full-HD+ display with a resolution of 1080×2280 pixels and 19:9 aspect ratio. The phone may flaunt an iPhone X-like notch on the front panel, as seen on the Oppo R15 and the recently launched Vivo V9 and Oppo F7. It is expected to come powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC clubbed with 6GB/8GB RAM and 64GB/256GB storage. On the software front, it may run Android 8.1 Oreo-based OxygenOS out of the box.
Going by the recent leaks and rumours, the OnePlus 6 could set consumers back by CAD 749/$575 (approximately Rs. 38,000). This rumoured pricing of the OnePlus 6 is quite higher than the pricing of the 8GB RAM/128GB storage variant of the OnePlus 5T.
