OnePlus has confirmed that it plans to work with the chipset maker Qualcomm in India on 5G trails. OnePlus displayed its first 5G prototype smartphone powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.
In a statement, OnePlus said it will be “amongst the first OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to launch smartphones powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 mobile platform in India, and plans to work with Qualcomm on 5G trials”. However, the company did not provide any further details.
“We have been loyal to Qualcomm’s 800-series Snapdragon chipsets since the release of our very first flagship device. This strong partnership with Qualcomm makes us believe that we could bring the best 5G device to the world,” OnePlus founder and CEO Pete Lau said.
OnePlus said that it started working on the 5G technology in 2016 and a year later the company partnered up with Qualcomm to develop OnePlus 5G devices.
Last year, OnePlus rolled out the first 5G tweet by connecting a prototype device to a 5G non-standalone network.
The Chinese smartphone manufacturer grabbed the first position in India as the top premium smartphone brand with 36 percent share all over the country. OnePlus outnumbered its rivals like Samsung and Apple in terms of sales in India.
OnePlus had entered the Indian market in 2014 and started selling its devices through Amazon India. The company initially had an invitation based model, however, with subsequent launches the company opened up sales to a larger public in India.
Various major OEMs like Samsung, Huawei, and Oppo have announced their own respective 5G enabled smartphones at the MWC this week. Samsung introduced the 5G variant of the Galaxy S10+ while Huawei integrated the technology in its foldable phone, the Mate X.
Apple, too, is expected to release its iPhones this year with 5G capability, however, the company might be facing a drawback as its chipset provider Intel has announced that it won’t be releasing consumer ready 5G chips until 2020. Apple was reported to be in talks with Samsung and MediaTek regarding its 5G modems but the outcome of those talks are still unknown.