OnePlus partnership with US-based T-Mobile shows trend toward cooperation
There will be cooperation, instead of hostility, between Chinese and US mobile phone companies in the long run as the US needs more mobile phone brands than are available in the country currently, a telecommunications expert said on Thursday.
He made the comment after domestic mobile phone brand OnePlus announced a comprehensive strategic cooperation pact with US mobile carrier T-Mobile on Monday.
Starting from Thursday, the new OnePlus 6T smart phones are being sold in the 5,600 T-Mobile stores in the US, OnePlus told the Global Times via a written statement on Thursday.
Pete Lau, CEO of OnePlus, posted several pictures of US customers queuing outside of a T-Mobile store on his personal twitter account. In one of those pictures, the exterior walls of the T-Mobile store are covered with large pink posters for the OnePlus 6T.
A report from Business Insider also noted in a report on Tuesday that outside T-Mobile's flagship store in Times Square, there was even a longer line of customers waiting to buy the new OnePlus 6T than for the new iPhones.
OnePlus’ acceptance by a mainstream US carrier comes at a time when several Chinese mobile phone brands’ business is being hindered in the US under a tougher investment environment.
In January, AT&T suddenly backed out of a deal with Huawei to sell the company's new flagship smartphone in the US, according to a report of the Verge.
A trade ban imposed on China’s ZTE Corp by the US government earlier this year also caused the company to suffer damage in the US market. The trade ban was lifted in July.
But experts said that in the long term, the US markets will welcome Chinese products. “US customers want more choices other than Apple and Samsung, while Chinese mobile phones have distinctive advantages, especially their cost performance,” Xiang Ligang, chief executive of Chinese telecoms industry news site cctime.com, told the Global Times.
But he still stressed that the threshold is higher in the US than in other markets like India for overseas mobile phone vendors.