OnePlus's Foldable Strategy: Patience Over Iteration
OnePlus's initial venture into the foldable market significantly benefited from its rebadging of Oppo's third foldable phone. This head start allowed the OnePlus Open to offer a remarkably complete software experience and hardware that surpassed offerings from Samsung and Google. Despite OnePlus and Oppo both forgoing a 2024 foldable release, the Open/Find N3 continued to compete strongly with and in many cases outperform, the newer generation of foldables.
Hype around whatever OnePlus would release next was near fever pitch. As leaks around the Oppo Find N5 began to surface we all assumed that the same pattern would be followed again with this device being rebadged as the Open 2 and released in North America. Unfortunately, that simply did not happen.
Oppo would release a truly exceptional device in the Find N5 while OnePlus would announce that they were once again not releasing a foldable for the year 2025. In a recent article from TechRadar, we get some additional insight as to why that decision was made. Speaking with Rudolf Xu, Senior Product Marketing Manager for OnePlus we have learned that OnePlus seems to think that releasing another foldable only makes sense if they can go beyond iterative changes.
“In the foldable industry, the common challenge for every smartphone maker is [working out] how to make the phone slimmer, lighter, and the crease less visible, while also, at the same time, not sacrificing other key specs when you are trying to solve those challenges. At OnePlus, we want to bring the best possible experience [to the user]. If you look back at the OnePlus Open, even up until today, it still has very competitive specs, honestly. It’s more about a timing situation. We are thinking about how we want to solve those [aforementioned] challenges in a better way. That’s why we decided not to launch a foldable this year.”
In my recent video discussing My Folding Phones of 2025, I actually placed the Open above the Find N5 citing a camera that delivered more natural shots and much louder speakers. Sure, the Find N5 is thinner, lighter, it has a faster CPU and better battery performance, but it also sacrifices in places that are just too important to me. Consider the Open came out in late 2023, it is shocking how well it still holds up today.
Xu also makes a case that foldables as a whole are in a period of flux, citing data that indicates foldable shipments are down year-over-year.
“There's also a figure I can share [that will help justify our decision]. If you check the latest Counterpoint research, foldable shipments increased by 2.9% year-over-year in 2024, which was actually lower than expected. The foldable market is increasing, for sure, but it will still take time for foldables to become mainstream and to really, let's say, cross the chasm and become a product for the majority [of people].”
It’s worth noting that the very same Counterpoint Research article cites the arrival of an Apple Foldable in 2026 as a reason that foldable devices could explode in sales for 2026. The prediction isn’t that foldables are on the downtrend, but instead that they are in a holding pattern waiting for a catalyst of change.
All of this continues to point towards OnePlus simply waiting for the right time, leaning on the fact that they already made a device that was so great that even two years on it can complete nicely with the latest releases from Samsung and Google. With the market trending down for 2025 and apparently set to expand in 2026, it makes perfect sense to focus on larger improvements and hold your fire until the right time.