OnePlus won’t launch a mid-range smartphone until 2021

OnePlus has gained widespread popularity and immense success in just four years of its operations. The company has created a niche for itself in the market by launching flagship killer smartphones with premium features at affordable pricing. Back in 2016 and 2017, the company launched two smartphones per year but all these models are flagship devices.

Though the company has been largely focusing on the premium devices, it released a mid-range device called OnePlus X back in 2015. This smartphone featured a metal and glass design and carried an affordable pricing. Though it belonged to the mid-range market segment, the device did not fare well due to several issues.

Ever since the company took the wraps off the OnePlus 3 and 3T in 2016, there were gossips that it will introduce a mid-range smartphone. Given the many rumors regarding the presence of such a device, the company seems to have decided to put an end to these now.

OnePlus to focus only on flagships

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has confirmed that they will stick to the current plan of releasing only flagship smartphones. He has confirmed that OnePlus is not in plans to launch a mid-range phone until 2021, claims a GizmoChina report. This means that we cannot expect to see a sequel to OnePlus X until 2021. And, the company is clear not to compete with other mid-range Chinese manufacturers.

Success strategy of OnePlus

The report says that OnePlus will focus on the flagship smartphones and is attempting to shift the remaining stock prior to the next big release. The company avoids selling old smartphones along with the latest ones as the demand for the former is not high.

Though sticking to one smartphone at a time might seem like a limitation, the overall strategy appears to work well for the manufacturer. Notably, the company is pretty successful in many markets and its latest flagship - OnePlus 6 is one of the bestselling smartphones on Amazon right now. The OnePlus 5T, which was unveiled in November 2017 was the bestselling smartphone during the first quarter of 2018 in India.

Oneplus 6 First Impressions

OnePlus 6 has surpassed the sales record created by the 5T. During the early access sale on Amazon on May 21, the device seemed to have been sold out in just 10 minutes. We expect the device to set new records before it gets a successor later this year.