In short: OnePlus surpassed half a million users in the United States earlier this summer, extrapolated data obtained by AndroidHeadlines reveals. OnePlus Launcher, the default OxygenOS launcher that’s updated via the Google Play Store since last year and can’t be easily removed from OnePlus handsets, is currently present on approximately 0.5-percent of all active Android devices in the country, SimilarWeb estimates. As numerous industry trackers reckon the number of Android gadgets in the U.S. already surpassed 100 million two years ago, a conservative extrapolation would suggest OnePlus currently has no fewer than half a million American customers. SimilarWeb’s figures are also supported by digital insight firm App Ape whose own platform provides similar performance estimates for OnePlus Launcher, as verified by AndroidHeadlines.
Background: The Chinese smartphone manufacturer previously disclosed it had over 1.3 million smartphone users around the world in 2017 and that the OnePlus 6 alone sold a million units in its first three weeks of availability earlier this year, thus becoming the firm’s fastest-selling device to date. Over the last twelve months, the company managed to increase its American user base by a factor of five, as suggested by the same extrapolation method based on SimilarWeb’s app data. Every third U.S. owner of a OnePlus device is female and nearly 90-percent of them aren’t using a third-party launcher but are instead sticking with the default OxygenOS option, App Ape estimates.
Impact: Between the increased commitment to marketing and the fact that OnePlus now secured its first distribution agreement with a U.S. carrier — T-Mobile — the upcoming OnePlus 6T is likely to more than double the firm’s stateside customer base in spite of an incremental price increase it’s expected to introduce. Being a BBK Electronics-owned company with no direct ties to Beijing, OnePlus may also manage to avoid regulatory issues with Washington that have been preventing Huawei and ZTE from doing large-scale business in the country so far, with both of those firms being repeatedly labeled as a national security threat.