After months of being rumored, Huawei hot deal with US carriers, Verizon and AT&T eventually fell through.
One of the world’s biggest smartphone makers, Huawei had hoped to finally crack the US market with the launch of the new Mate 10 Pro. Now it looks the firm will be launching the phone without a carrier partner, although it’s a well-known fact that US customers tend to buy their phones through a carrier.
This is something other Chinese companies are well aware of. For example, OnePlus – which appears to have some expansion plans in this direction, as well.
The company, which originally set out selling phones through an invite system, has matured enough to start considering the next step in their evolution – inking a deal with US carriers to sell their phones through them.
Speaking at CES 2018 with CNET, OnePlus’ CEO Pete Lau said that if the right opportunity and timing were to come along, the company would be very happy to experiment in this direction.
Building on the grand success of the OnePlus 5T, the company is currently working on their next-flagship which might make it on the market as the OnePlus 6.
According to Lau, the phone will arrive late in the second quarter of the year and will be powered by a Snapdragon 845 – no surprise here.
But will OnePlus manage to succeed where Huawei has failed? It might. An apt example that a Chinese company can secure partnerships with US carriers is ZTE. The company has been a presence on the American market for a few years now and recently released the experimental Axon M phone in partnership with AT&T.
While the US government continues to be wary of Huawei’s supposed ties to the Chinese government, it apparently has no objections to ZTE’s practices. Although back in March, ZTE received a record $1,2 billion fine for illegally selling US-made goods in Iran and North Korea.
Will the US government’s goodwill extend to OnePlus? We’ll just have to wait and see.
