Chips & Hardware
OnePlus reportedly plans to wind down US and Europe operations
OnePlus reportedly plans to wind down its US, European, and Indian operations this week as parent company Oppo restructures amid a global smartphone slump.
Android phone maker OnePlus reportedly plans to wind down its U.S. and Europe operations this week, according to a report from Bloomberg. A source cited by Bloomberg said the shuttering of OnePlus’s U.S. and European shops is part of a corporate reorganization at parent company Oppo. The report also noted that OnePlus will wind down its operations in India, one of its biggest markets outside China — extending the retreat well beyond its Western footprint.
The retreat marks a significant shift for a brand that Pete Lau and Carl Pei started in 2013 to sell affordable Android phones for tech enthusiasts. The company built global demand over time by expanding its lineup, though Pei left in 2020 to start Nothing, a separate consumer electronics company. According to the Bloomberg report, Oppo now plans to continue operating OnePlus in China while selling its Realme phones abroad in regions like the Nordic region, where the brand has proved successful — narrowing OnePlus itself to a single home market even as Oppo keeps a foothold elsewhere through a different label.
The restructuring comes amid broader strain on the smartphone industry. Oppo faced a double-digit shipment decline year-over-year for the second quarter of 2026, according to a report from Counterpoint, which attributed the drop to softness that the firm said spanned most of Oppo’s key markets, driven by weak demand. More broadly, analytics firms IDC and Counterpoint have predicted that smartphone shipments are going to decline by more than 13% in 2026, driven by a limited supply of memory chips — a shortage the industry has taken to calling “RAMageddon.” That shortage, and the broader pullback in purchases it has triggered, is the backdrop against which Oppo is now consolidating OnePlus’s footprint and retreating from markets it once expanded into aggressively.
Why it matters
The retreat of a major enthusiast brand from Western markets and India highlights how severely supply chain constraints and cooling consumer demand are forcing global hardware giants to consolidate and defend their home turf.