OnePlus CEO talks about a second 5G phone coming in Q4, international expansion, and plans to launch a TV set
OnePlus, China's upstart smartphone maker, is preparing a global rollout of its new 5G device this year, as it looks to expand in the US and win more customers from Huawei, Apple and Samsung.
Context & Ripple Effects
OnePlus has been building toward the US for years: after seeking Silicon Valley VC backing in 2015, it committed to selling its OnePlus 3 as an unlocked phone in the US and other markets — a direct-sales model rather than carrier deals. The 2019 announcement layers a second 5G device in Q4 and a TV set onto that playbook, explicitly aimed at winning customers from Huawei, Apple and Samsung.
The US push it outlines here eventually lands: the 10 Pro's US, Europe and India launch in 2022 confirms the international expansion took hold, though the OnePlus 15's US debut delayed by a government shutdown in 2025 shows US market access remains exposed to factors outside OnePlus's control.
First-order effects
- A second 5G phone in Q4 gives OnePlus two 5G devices for the holiday season, directly targeting Huawei, Apple and Samsung customers as it expands into the US.
- The TV set plan moves OnePlus beyond phones for the first time in this coverage, putting its brand into the living room against Samsung and other TV makers.
Second-order effects
- Samsung and Apple face a challenger attacking from the unlocked, direct-sales side of the market — a channel where price-to-spec ratio, not carrier subsidies, drives the comparison.
- A TV launch forces OnePlus to build content and software partnerships for a category where it has no installed base, testing whether its phone-community loyalty transfers to adjacent hardware.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, OnePlus's arc from unlocked-flagship upstart to multi-device ecosystem brand becomes the template for Chinese phone makers entering Western markets — with US regulatory and political friction, as the later OnePlus 15 delay shows, as the recurring constraint on how far that expansion can go.
The trend: OnePlus is executing a decade-long shift from niche unlocked-flagship seller to multi-category ecosystem brand, with US market access — not product cadence — as the binding constraint.