While Samsung and Google have dominated the high-end smartphone market in some form or another, companies like Motorola and OnePlus are often seen as the underdogs. That said, 2024 has proven that both companies still have what it takes to make a splash in the North American smartphone market, and 2025 could be the time when both companies shine.
Motorola and OnePlus took very different approaches with their launches this year, with varying degrees of success. On the one hand, there was a sense of focus and restraint, with products offering improvements that finally give us the impression that Motorola and OnePlus are finally on the right track. On the other hand, both companies fell short in ways that would make them truly stand out among juggernauts like Samsung and Chinese OEMs.
If they want to succeed in 2025, neither can rest on their laurels and will have to maintain their momentum to get more devices in more hands.
Motorola’s Razr sharp focus
In recent years, Motorola has been seen as little more than a budget option for consumers, launching low-cost phones that compete with Samsung’s A-series devices on both specs and price. Given how prominent smartphone carriers are in North America, consumers will often gravitate toward iPhones, Galaxy phones, and even Pixels.
Still, that carrier relationship has been quite important for Motorola, and it has helped the company secure a solid spot as a top OEM in North America, among other regions around the world, as noted by Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research.
“Moto has been focusing heavily on prepaid channels with some good traction for G & Edge series [and] some good promos for Razr 2024 [series] in postpaid at T-Mobile and AT&T,” Shah explained in an interview, noting that Latin America has been a stronghold for the company, especially with its budget models.
A Motorola phone is a safe bet for anyone looking for a cheap Android phone, and they have proven that they can bring plenty of value at lower prices.
“What has worked for Moto in markets outside USA (especially India) has been focused on CMF (Colors, Materials and Finish) in partnership with Pantone helping it differentiate among the sea of blacks and got the positioning and partnerships right. That is key as well in North America,” Shah notes.
However, Shah points out that the company still struggles in the higher-end and premium segments where Samsung rules. This is where the Razr series comes in. I reviewed the Razr Plus 2024 earlier this year and came away extremely impressed with it, even after I pitted it against the more powerful Galaxy Z Flip 6.
There’s no doubt that Motorola will focus its efforts on the Razr series in 2025, especially after Lenovo announced that its mobile business is set to double by 2026, thanks to its flagship lineups. Motorola’s marketing efforts for the Razr series have also paid off, with the company targeting the younger Gen Z and the older millennials who yearn for the nostalgia of a flip phone and something other than an iPhone.
The question is whether or not Motorola can keep it up in 2025.
Motorola can’t rely solely on the Razr series, particularly in the U.S., where there is a swathe of high-end Samsung phones to choose from and when consumers are unsure about foldable phones. Motorola’s closest premium non-foldable phone is the Edge 2024, which was a little underwhelming compared to the Edge Plus 2023. And while the Edge 50 Ultra was among the more impressive phones to launch this year, it never arrived in the U.S., leaving plenty of room for the Galaxy S24 series to eat up plenty of the premium market share.
Shah notes that Motorola “is particularly still quite weak in [the] $500+ wholesale premium segment,” and with the growing popularity of the Razr series, Motorola can use the momentum around its name to launch a premium Edge model in North America to challenge Samsung’s dominance, especially if it can get the phone on carrier shelves.
Of course, if Motorola wants a fighting chance, it’ll have to do more than put a nice new phone on the shelves, according to Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers.
While Ubrani agrees that Motorola has well-rounded phones with incredible value, he notes that “the reality is that they don’t have any notable standout features or points of differentiation and often fall below other brands when it comes to some smartphone basics such as photography.”
Ubrani suggests that Motorola should offer improved photo and video capture on its phones, something the company hasn’t particularly excelled in. Perhaps the company should consider a partnership like what we've seen with other Android OEMs. OnePlus's partnership with Hasselblad has resulted in impressive camera quality on its recent devices, and Motorola could benefit from a similar collaboration.
AI could also play a huge role for Motorola in 2025. The company is already beta-testing its Moto AI suite with features that summarize notifications, transcribe recordings, and recall saved content. It also showed off its Large Action Model, which performs actions in apps on the user’s behalf, such as ordering a coffee or Uber. Motorola hasn’t said when this will arrive on phones, but with the recently announced Gemini 2.0, this can’t be too far off, and I could imagine this launching in 2025.
Of course, this is all contingent on whether Motorola can avoid having its phones banned in the U.S. The company is currently in a patent infringement dispute with Ericsson that could ban its devices in several countries, so hopefully, Lenovo can work things out to avoid a move that would be pretty detrimental to the market.
OnePlus has the hardware, but it needs to play the game
Unlike Motorola, which has seen an uptick in the adoption of its flagship phones, OnePlus has struggled to get its phones into consumer hands. The company launched the rather impressive OnePlus 12 earlier this year, which I recently had the pleasure of using.
Thanks to the multi-year partnership with Hasselblad, OnePlus has managed to develop a camera system that could rival Samsung and even Google, and the company was even among the first to bring Android 15 to its smartphones in 2024, something even Samsung hasn’t managed to do.
However, none of that matters if no one’s buying the phone, and OnePlus has been absent from the rankings for top OEM shipments for 2024.
That said, both Shah and Ubrani agree that there is an overall positive perception of the company. So why is that not translating into sales, especially in North America, which is a major market? Ubrani tells me that the issue isn’t with OnePlus.
“The issue is the state of the U.S. smartphone market and the fact that telcos act as gatekeepers. When OnePlus first started, they eschewed the telcos by going direct-to-consumer, and though it worked well, they were still a very tiny player. They eventually began to work with American telcos, but this proved to be too expensive, and they eventually backed away.
The reality is that the unlocked piece of the U.S. smartphone market is tiny (sub 10%), and unless brands are willing to spend large sums of money to work with telcos, they don’t stand a chance. I doubt we’ll see much of OnePlus in the U.S. as a result of this.”
OnePlus could take a page from Motorola’s book regarding carrier partnerships in 2025. The last major OnePlus phone to be sold through a U.S. carrier was the OnePlus 10 Pro, and even that was limited to T-Mobile. Since then, anyone who wanted a OnePlus phone had to buy it straight from the company or unlocked from a retailer. In the U.S., this makes it incredibly difficult to move a significant number of units, even with the cheaper and more accessible OnePlus 12R.
Shah also points out that despite OnePlus’s attractive portfolio, the $300-$600 price point that it targets in the U.S. “is barely 5% of the total market, which reduces its Total Addressable Market for OnePlus to compete.”
That said, with the upcoming launch of the OnePlus 13, there is some hope. The global launch is on January 7, and the phone should prove quite impressive based on what we’ve seen from the Chinese variant. It’s unclear if OnePlus’s carrier relationships will get better, but Anshel Sag, principal analyst for Moor Insights & Strategy, seems optimistic.
“I think OnePlus is doing about as well as they expect to in the U.S. market without in-store carrier support. That said, I do believe that the next generation of devices are really good, and I've been surprised by the quality of the products across the brand and I think they should do a better job of exposing themselves to consumers with their accessories like the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 which are among my favorite earbuds.
The OnePlus 13 sets the stage for the next generation and I think we'll see some interesting things from them next month.”
Additionally, OnePlus has done a good job expanding its product portfolio, launching the mighty impressive OnePlus Watch 2 and Watch 2R along with the OnePlus Pad 2. This is something we would like to see Motorola do more of in 2025, as the company doesn’t currently have a branded Android tablet or a Wear OS smartwatch. OnePlus may not have a huge U.S. presence, but Motorola’s growing popularity could benefit from an expanded portfolio and a more realized family of devices à la Samsung’s Galaxy lineup.
One product we hope to see in 2025 is the OnePlus Open 2, especially after we came away so impressed by the original OnePlus Open. The company skipped a launch in 2024, so this could be the year OnePlus really challenges Samsung and Google, but that depends on its ability to get it into consumer's hands.
Aside from OnePlus and Motorola, other smaller companies like TCL, HMD Global, and Nothing are still clawing for market share in the U.S., with TCL having the best prospects among them. That said, despite launching unique and affordable products in 2024, the lack of strong carrier relationships will likely make it hard to grow in 2025.
Motorola’s willingness to play the game with carriers has solidified its place as a top-selling player, teetering between the budget and premium segments where it can compete with both the smaller and bigger players. Because of this, 2025 could be a big year for Motorola if it continues to play its cards right, but others, like OnePlus, will likely struggle to make any significant headway.
