Last month, the OnePlus 6T became the first OnePlus phone to launch on a U.S. carrier when T-Mobile began selling it. Now it looks like the decision to partner with T-Mo is paying off for OnePlus.
U.S. sales of the OnePlus 6T were up 249 percent in its first 30 days of availability compared to the OnePlus 6, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau told PCMag. While the OnePlus 6T does offer improvements over the OnePlus 6, like a slightly larger display and battery, the most likely cause for this sales boost is T-Mobile selling the OnePlus 6T.
Most consumers in the U.S. buy their smartphones from their carrier. Doing so lets them try out a phone in-store before they buy, and with the rise of monthly payment plans, they can add the monthly cost of their phone to their cellphone bill. Buying a phone direct from the manufacturer can be a tough proposition for some folks, especially when they're not able to try the device first, so it's no surprise to hear that the OnePlus 6T's launch on T-Mobile gave it a sales boost. Many people probably got their first exposure to OnePlus this way.
Lau touched on a few other topics in this interview. When it comes to the OnePlus 6T's lack of a headphone jack, for example, Lau says that omitting the jack was "a very painful decision," but he points to the OnePlus 6T having a bigger battery and longer battery life compared to the OnePlus 6. The CEO also said that he'd like to make a small phone, but that battery life and the lack of dramatic improvements in battery technology prevents it.
5G was also a topic of conversation for Lau, who said that at least to start with, there will need to be separate 5G phones for each carrier. He also said that it's easier to build for sub-6GHz 5G networks, but that he believes there will be "a solution for millimeter wave" spectrum in 2019.
