This is the world's most profitable market for smartphones, and the most closed

As a US-based brand, Motorola suffered a precipitous decline after it was sold to Google in 2011, quickly exiting the rest of the world and even falling below 1% market share in the US. After its acquisition by Lenovo, Motorola was able to maintain a 3-4% share in the US by relying on shipments from the two major carriers, Verizon and AT&T, and finally had the opportunity to see LG exit the market.

However, volume in the carrier channel is not indicative of momentum, and CounterPoint's statistics from last year show that Motorola is not even as competitive as Google and OnePlus in the US in the mid- to high-end smartphone market, which costs more than $400. In fact, in all major regions of the world, Motorola is only in the top three in the mid-to-high end market in Latin America. (Latin America is traditionally Motorola's dominant market, especially in South American countries.)

One Plus phones have been sold in the US since the first generation in 2012, but sales were slow to break through due to limited channels on the official website. The company's share of the US market first broke 1% in 2021 and continued to rise to 2% this year, matching Google's Pixel shipments, according to CounterPoint. The US market was the first to break 1% until 2021 and continued to rise to 2% this year, matching Google Pixel shipments.

Chinese phones can't play

With only a handful of smartphones to choose from in the US, Android enthusiasts like Mazumdar have been forced to go online for a long time and buy a wide range of Chinese smartphones. But he's also worried that his fun may not last much longer, as Chinese phones won't be available in the US.

One by one, Mazumdar found that his Xiaomi, OPPO and many other Chinese phones could not access the mobile network and were now Wi-Fi only devices at home. To use his Chinese phone, he uses a T-Mobile card in addition to the AT&T package his family uses.

"In addition to AT&T's blocking of Chinese phones, Verizon won't activate non-US phones, and T-Mobile's access policy is still relatively lenient, but I don't know how long it will last. Also, 5G doesn't work and Wi-Fi Calling isn't supported. The last two Huawei phones I bought were the Mate 30 Pro and the P 30 Pro, but even if I managed to install the Google framework, the push messaging was very inconvenient. I haven't bought many Chinese phones in the past two years, so maybe I won't be able to play anymore." Mazumdar says with disappointment.

Mazumdar is not happy with the Moto and OnePlus that are available in the US market. "Moto's near-native system is clean, but the screen and many other hardware are average, the photo algorithm is bad, there are few unique features, and the price/performance ratio is average. I've been using One Plus phones since the first generation and have bought almost every generation, but after reaching the 9 series I became disappointed and decided not to buy any more. Not only are software upgrades delayed, but OxygenOS is buggy and upgrades are released with new firmware without fixing old bugs."

Chinese phones struggle to make it to the US

While ZTE, Coolpad and TCL have all relied on the carrier channel to capture significant shipments in the US over the past decade, relying on the channel for low-end phones also means they don't have much brand clout. The truly competitive Chinese smartphone brands, Huami and Bluegreen, have all been turned away from the US market, even if they had ambitions.