June 2024. The European OnePlus community that I have been part of since the One in 2014 is functionally gone. Not formally dissolved, not officially announced as ended. Just dispersed. The people who were in the French OnePlus community forums in 2016, who organized enthusiast meetups, who participated in community review programs, who argued in comment sections that the OnePlus 3 was the correct answer to the question “what Android phone should I buy”: most of them are using something else now. I can tell you where they went because I have stayed in contact with enough of them: Nothing’s community, the Pixel community, Xiaomi’s European enthusiast groups. The OnePlus community did not collapse dramatically. It gradually stopped being the place where people who care about Android gather.
The competitive landscape that changed around OnePlus
The European market in 2024 is more competitive than it has been at any point in OnePlus’s presence here, and not just because of what OnePlus has done to itself. Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series is excellent across every tier. Google Pixel 8 has arrived in Europe with a genuine computational photography advantage and a clean software experience that directly addresses the same audience OnePlus owned. Xiaomi has aggressively expanded its European presence and is offering comparable hardware at OnePlus prices, with stronger camera systems in many comparisons. Nothing’s Phone (2) at £599 holds the community-first, software-philosophy-driven position that OnePlus held in 2016 at a comparable price point. The iPhone SE provides an Apple entry point that competes with OnePlus’s mid-range offerings in the minds of buyers who are already part of the Apple ecosystem.
In 2016, OnePlus was the obvious answer to the question of “best Android phone for under €400.” In 2024, that question has four or five good answers, and OnePlus is not the most obvious one. The community that defaulted to OnePlus because it was uniquely positioned now has real alternatives, and when they evaluate those alternatives against a brand running OxygenOS 12’s legacy and dealing with green line complaints and SKU confusion, the default stops defaulting to OnePlus. The brand has not been pushed out of Europe by competitors. It has vacated its position, and the competitors have occupied it.
Part of OnePlus: The Complete Story, my full history of OnePlus from founding to the Realme merger.
Related reading: how Xiaomi gained the European ground OnePlus lost.