OnePlus and Qualcomm to begin 5G trials in India

Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus recently showcased its 5G prototype smartphone at the Mobile World Congress 2019. And now, the company has said that it has plans to work with American chipmaker Qualcomm on 5G trials in India. Although the news of 5G trials in India is certainly going to make some very happy, we are surprised that the company is collaborating with Qualcomm to do it, as OnePlus and the chipmaker’s relationship dates back to the time when OnePlus One made its debut.

Even at MWC 2019, the 5G prototype smartphone that OnePlus showed was displayed at Qualcomm‘s booth and it is powered by Snapdragon 855 processor coupled with Snapdragon X50 5G modem.

Coming back to OnePlus’s plans to begin 5G rollout in India, the company’s CEO Pete Lau said in a statement that the smartphone maker 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, he did not give out any more details about the company’s plans. Speaking about its relationship with Qualcomm, Lau said, “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.”

We should mention that the company had started researching on new-age 5G technology in 2016. And just after a year in 2017, OnePlus began working with Qualcomm to develop a 5G smartphone.

Find out how you can shape the future of 5G in @petelau2007's latest post. Are you ready to join the 5G Apps of Tomorrow program and bring your vision to life?

— OnePlus (@oneplus) February 27, 2019

In October last year, OnePlus also posted the world’s first 5G tweet by connecting a prototype smartphone to a non-standalone 5G network. And at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Tech Summit in December 2018, the company announced that it will be launching a 5G smartphone this year. And OnePlus seems to be keeping its promise as it did give attendees of MWC 2019 the first look of its 5G prototype smartphone at the tech show. However, we should add that the company did main some confidentiality by keeping the device in a casing.

Last year, OnePlus surpassed Apple and Samsung in India and garnered the largest share of the premium smartphone segment in the country during the December quarter. To be precise, OnePlus had 36% of the share of the premium segment of the Indian smartphone market.