The fallout from the UK’s decision to leave the EU in their Brexit vote is already impacting the smartphone market, with it today being announced that the OnePlus 3’s price will be raised from £309 to £329 as a result of the decline in the value of Sterling.
OnePlus revealed the price change today, with a spokesperson for the company releasing the following statement:”We’ve seen a downward trend for the Pound against the USD over the past few months. While we’ve held off action for as long as we can, the sharp drop witnessed in the currency markets following the Brexit decision has forced us to re-evaluate the OnePlus 3’s pricing in the UK at a time of significant demand.”
The statement continued: “Given the effects of the unstable markets on our extremely thin margins, we’re reluctantly going to have to make some small changes to our pricing structure for the [OnePlus 3]. There’s still time to pick up the device at the current price of £309. We said that we’d give you as much notice as possible, and we’re committed to taking the hit over the next few days and absorbing the resulting losses.”
This is the first major tech product to have been directly impacted by the results of the EU referendum, with OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei taking to Twitter to address the price hike, tweeting: “Sorry UK friends.”
The value of Sterling decreased instantly following the UK’s decision to leave the EU, sinking to a 30-year low. 52 per cent of UK citizens voted to leave the European Union, which led to David Cameron resigning as Prime Minister. In the wake of the vote, staunch Leave campaigner Boris Johnson revealed that he wouldn’t put himself in the running for the job of PM, despite him being the favorite to replace Cameron. Leave campaigner and UKIP leader Nigel Farage also retired from the party, saying that he’d achieved his “political ambition”.
