OnePlus One says farewell to invites, but they will return for the OnePlus 2

The OnePlus One took the mobile world by storm one year ago, and now the world can finally buy it without restrictions.

To celebrate the anniversary of the One’s debut, OnePlus announced today that it’s finally retiring its notorious invite system. The OnePlus One is now freely available for sale in every market where the company operates.

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OnePlus has had open sale events before and has taken to selling the One without an invite every Tuesday. But now the window is open permanently, as the startup thinks it’s mature enough to manage an open sales model.

In celebration, OnePlus is discounting its flip covers and screen protectors by 75 percent and opening up sales for the bamboo StyleSwap back covers without an invite, while supplies last.

If the system invite annoyed you, the bad news is OnePlus is not ready to put it behind for good. When the OnePlus 2 comes later this year, the device will be offered through the same invitation-only system:

“We’re committed to maintaining razor-thin margins in order to give as much value as possible back to our users, and this drastically increases our risk. The OnePlus 2 will bring the challenges that come along with a brand new product, and initially, our invite system will help us to manage that risk.”

Now the question is, how many people who wanted a OnePlus One still haven’t got one? When the One launched a year ago, the competition in the “affordable-flagship” niche was weaker than today, not to mention that the One has to face new devices, like the Zenfone 2, with its 4GB of RAM.

Thoughts?