I’ve loved OnePlus since the beginning, but its death now feels inevitable

OnePlus — one of the most unique and disruptive Android brands of the past decade — is in dire straits.

In January, a report claimed that OnePlus was being completely dismantled. OnePlus quickly denied it, indicating that business was as usual. Fast forward to March 23, and a new report says that OnePlus will be ceasing operations in “select global markets.” Just one day later, a OnePlus executive who previously squashed the initial shutdown rumors officially left the company.

While reports of OnePlus’s demise are still unverified, it’s clear that something big is happening within the company — something not good. As a longtime OnePlus fan who wants to see it succeed, the idea of OnePlus dying is hard to contend with.

But simultaneously, it also feels inevitable.

OnePlus in its prime

When the OnePlus One was released in 2014, it felt like a phone that shouldn’t exist. To get an Android phone with flagship-grade specs, such a unique design, and the perks of peak CyanogenMod — all for just $300 — sounded too good to be true. While there were issues with the invite system and questionable marketing campaigns, the OnePlus One was as real as it got. And it was magnificent.

As someone who bought a OnePlus One in August 2014 (and spent months active on OnePlus’s forums before then), the phone was unlike anything else I had experienced in the Android world. It brought into question whether you really needed to spend hundreds of dollars more on a flagship Samsung or LG phone. It also put all other budget Android handsets of the time to shame. OnePlus had cracked a value proposition that no other company had gotten close to offering, and the entire smartphone landscape was better for it.

While OnePlus would never fully recapture the lightning in a bottle it struck with the OnePlus One, the company did a good job building on its formula of enthusiast Android phones that cost far less than they probably should.

For all the issues the OnePlus 2 had, improvements like its metal frame, a greatly improved display, and its USB-C port (one of the first Android phones with it) were meaningful upgrades. It also introduced the iconic Alert Slider, which defined OnePlus phones until last year.

The OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T marked a turning point for OnePlus, but in a good way. The transition to metal unibody designs lacked the identity of the first two phones, but the build quality and craftsmanship easily made up for that.

Display quality and performance continued to be OnePlus’s strong suits, and the company’s OxygenOS software (which debuted on the OnePlus 2) really came into its own with the 3 and 3T. These were also the first two phones to spur OnePlus’s interest in fast wired charging — another staple of modern OnePlus handsets. More importantly, OnePlus’s prices continued to undercut the competition by a significant margin, and the removal of the invite system meant it was easier than ever to buy a OnePlus phone.

It seemed like everything was going right.

When everything started going wrong

I remember watching the OnePlus 5 launch event in June 2017 and having a bad feeling in my gut. OnePlus was still delivering on performance, charging, and other high-end specs as it had for years, but something about the phone felt off.

Maybe it was the shameless iPhone 7 Plus-like design. Maybe it was OnePlus’ decision to focus so much on questionable camera upgrades. Maybe it was the creeping starting price, which had now risen to $479. The OnePlus 5 was still very well received, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that this was no longer the same OnePlus we had grown used to.

Perhaps that feeling was premature, because for a while, OnePlus continued to impress. The OnePlus 5T slimmed its display bezels to a seriously impressive degree. The OnePlus 6 debuted a gorgeous new glass design, and the OnePlus 6T’s arrival on T-Mobile in the United States meant OnePlus phones were available to a much wider audience than ever before.

Then there was the OnePlus 7 Pro — a phone which I’d happily argue was the culmination of OnePlus at its very best. It was one of the first major Android phones with a 90Hz display refresh rate. Its pop-up selfie camera remains an impressive mechanical feat. The curved display with barely-there bezels, outstanding glass/metal construction, and excellent performance and software made the OnePlus 7 Pro a truly special smartphone.

The $669 starting price marked another all-time high price tag for a OnePlus phone, but with the OnePlus 7 Pro, the extra dollars were justified. This felt like the phone OnePlus had been working toward since the beginning, and it’s a phone I still remember very fondly all these years later.

This all sounds pretty good still — so where exactly did things go wrong?

The OnePlus 7 Pro was released in May 2019. In August 2020, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau became Senior Vice President of OPLUS — an investing group overseeing OnePlus, OPPO, and realme at the time. Just two months later, in October 2020, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei left OnePlus to start Nothing.

OnePlus’s ties to OPPO (and its parent company, BBK) had been a poorly kept secret for years, but it was in 2021 that the veil was completely removed. In January of that year, OnePlus and OPPO merged their two R&D teams to “better maximize resources.” In June, Lau said that OnePlus would “further integrate” into OPPO, and in September, OnePlus announced it was working on a unified codebase to merge OxygenOS and OPPO’s ColorOS.

Naturally, this created significant concern about what would become of OnePlus. After years of being an enthusiast brand that was largely its own thing, how would this deepening relationship with OPPO affect the OnePlus we had grown to know and love?

As it turns out, not very well.

Phones like the OnePlus 8, OnePlus 9, and OnePlus 10 released during this time were far from complete failures, but they also lacked the identity of the OnePlus of old. The OnePlus 8 Pro completely turned OnePlus’ pricing strategy on its head with an $899 starting price. The OnePlus 10T shipped without the Alert Slider. And, unsurprisingly, OxygenOS began morphing into a ColorOS copycat — turning what used to be an excellent Android skin into a shell of its former self.

OnePlus has had big wins since the deepened ties with OPPO, but nothing sustainable. The OnePlus Open was an outstanding foldable that never got a successor. The OnePlus 13 won Android Authority‘s title for the best phone of 2025, followed by a supremely disappointing OnePlus 15. And when it looked like OxygenOS was finally getting back into a good place, OnePlus ruined it with OxygenOS 16.

It’s not that OnePlus has been in freefall or anything of the sort since its OPPO-fication, but there’s been a continued series of poor decisions that have put OnePlus in a difficult position. Its phones are more expensive than ever, specs are being downgraded with new models, and the software has never been more polarizing.

What future does OnePlus have left?

Whether OnePlus’ shortcomings are a result of OPPO deliberately sabotaging the brand or not, that doesn’t really matter. All that matters now is where OnePlus goes from here, and where it’s going sure does look like the end of OnePlus as we know it.

In addition to the shutdown reports mentioned at the beginning of this article, in the middle of my writing this on March 24, 9to5Google published its own report claiming that OnePlus will wind down operations “in certain regions, including vast portions of Europe.” Most notably, it could happen as early as this April.

That leaves us with three reports from three independent sources claiming that OnePlus is in serious trouble. Even with OnePlus’s denial of the original Android Headlines report from January, it’s hard to imagine a positive outcome from any of this.

OnePlus is backed into a corner. Its latest smartphones have missed the mark, and OPPO hasn’t done the company any favors. That’s also to say nothing of the challenges OnePlus has faced due to the global economy and the RAM crisis. When you combine that with multiple reports of OnePlus shutting down significant parts of its business, it’s pretty damn bleak.

I don’t want OnePlus to die, but unless something big changes, its death feels inevitable.