OnePlus Backtracks on Its Tariff-Induced Watch 3 Price Hike

Well, that didn’t last long. The OnePlus Watch 3 debuted to American consumers at a massively inflated price earlier this month. OnePlus didn’t say why they’d hiked the sticker price from the planned $330 to $500, but everyone can take an educated guess: tariffs.

Now, little more than two weeks later, OnePlus has dropped the price of the Watch 3 to $350. It’s not the $330 we were promised, but hey, it’s an easy pill to swallow after initially hearing that the price jump would be so massive that it’d bump the device into a whole new tier of the market.

one step forward, one backward, and one sideways

The Watch 3 has already had a tough enough time reaching the marketplace. A few months ago, OnePlus misspelled the word “made” on the back of the initial batch of Watch 3s’ casings and caused a two-month delay for their flagship smartwatch while they sorted it out.

Then it debuted right in time for Trump to throw the world into a dizzying economic situation while day-to-day changes in the US’ tariff rates were seemingly picked out of a hat by a dolphin.

Some good news for would-be OnePlus buyers, then. “After further evaluation, we’re pleased to share that recent adjustments in our supply chain have allowed us to pass some savings back to those who are interested in purchasing the OnePlus Watch 3 in the U.S,” Spenser Blank, OnePlus’ Head of Marketing & Communications for OnePlus North America, told TechRadar.

That said, OnePlus could reverse course at any time. It’s a Chinese company that makes the Watch 3 in China, and so it’s doing business from the country most hard-hit by American tariffs at the moment.

A tariff of 145% on most Chinese-made goods could have serious implications down the road if China and the US don’t come to a deal soon, as it’d be extraordinarily hard for any company to maintain their pricing without a price increase in the wake of such a tariff.