OnePlus’s 51% Price Hike on the Watch 3 is a Bad Sign..
You may remember a while back when OnePlus found themselves in a bit of an odd situation after shipping a bunch of OnePlus Watch 3s with a typo stamped onto the backs of the devices. Rather than “Made in China” they read “Meda in China.” After realizing the error, OnePlus delayed shipping any further watches and offered a free replacement for users who wanted this error fixed. I think I would have kept mine as a collectors item, to be honest.
Now, after a couple of months of being unavailable for sale, the Watch 3 is finally back up for order, but with one absolutely massive caveat. Rather than being sold for the original price of $329, the OnePlus Watch 3 now retails for an eye-watering $499. While OnePlus has yet to explain why the price has shot up so dramatically after being announced and after even selling quite a few of them, I think we can all make a pretty solid guess as to what is going on here. It’s not a coincidence that it still sells for £319.00 in the UK store.
Do I need to say it? Are you guys going to yell at me? It’s tariffs. It’s massive, sudden tariffs on China and other regions.
Broader Effects
We priced our laptops when tariffs on imports from Taiwan were 0%. At a 10% tariff, we would have to sell the lowest-end SKUs at a loss. Other consumer goods makers have performed the same calculations and taken the same actions, though most have not been open about it.
— Framework (@FrameworkPuter) April 7, 2025
This rather sharp increase in price due to the over 100% tariff in place on China does lead to other important questions. Before we talk about these things, let me just say this: I am not an economist and I am not an expert on these topics. Take what you read here as speculation for the sake of speculation.
Perhaps the first big thing that might pop into your mind is whether or not these tariffs had any impact on OnePlus forgoing the release of the OnePlus Open 2. As well all know by now, Oppo released the Find N5 in many regions just a month or so back, but OnePlus decided against rebranding it for release in their regions like they did with the original OnePlus Open. This came as quite the disappointment to my viewers as many of them were planning on buying that device.
One reason that was tossed around for why the Open 2 didn’t happen was that OnePlus saw the threat of increased tariffs, did the math and decided that an Open 2 simply wouldn’t make financial sense. Personally, I don’t think that’s what happened as it doesn’t explain Oppo’s behavior. The Find N5 didn’t ship outside Asian regions either, so what we have is OnePlus pulling back on foldables entirely while Oppo pulls back to only their strongest regions. I think the tariffs would have been an issue for OnePlus, but I think that would have been a coincidence.
https://t.co/H1wYQ9cVGD pic.twitter.com/LJyw116Ddr
— Eric Migicovsky (@ericmigi) April 8, 2025
Who Else?
Going forward, it’s going to be painfully interesting to watch and see what OEMs are impacted by this and how they react. We just got word that Razer was halting sale of their laptops in the US. Framework has also pulled their lower tier models, citing the 10% tariff on Taiwan. That’s the rate we are on a 90-day “pause” on and it’s still enough to render those devices no longer profitable.
I also saw a tweet the other day from Eric Migicovsky that seemed to take a humorous approach to lamenting the impact on his attempts to revive the Pebble brand. The new Pebble watches are up for preorder now starting at $149, but with manufacturing being done in China it isn’t hard to imagine a reality where that price as to go up. It’s not like they’re selling at some large scale where profit margins can be thin. If we take the 51% increase OnePlus just had to do to their watch, that would make the base model Pebble $224.
It’s hard to imagine that selling particularly well.
51% Higher Prices?
Just as a little thought experiment, let’s imagine what it would be like for OnePlus to launch an Open 2 today. The Oppo Find N5 launched at what would have been around $1,870. Obviously, that’s a moving target today for lots of reasons, but let’s go with it. If we take that 51% increase and apply it to that we get a price of $2800.
As good as the Find N5 is, are you down for a $2800 Open 2? I doubt it.
Let’s be generous and use the Open’s starting price of $1699. That puts you at $2500. The reality is that for many OEMs, these tariffs will make selling their products here at the current price impossible. Unless cooler heads prevail and something changes, brace for impact and brace for a world where products are simply more expensive in the US, if they’re for sale here at all.