OnePlus backs off its Watch 3’s huge price hike

OnePlus has reversed a big price hike for the Watch 3 and will sell the smartwatch for $349.99, OnePlus spokesperson Spencer Blank tells The Verge via email. That’s $20 more than the price it was initially announced at, but a big drop from the unexplained $499.99 cost it debuted at on April 10th.

Blank attributes the Watch 3’s 52 percent price increase on April 10th to “current market conditions,” but now says that “further evaluation” and supply chain adjustments have made it possible for the company to drop the price back down, albeit not all the way to the $329.99 it had intended. Blank adds that the new price tag is the “final MSRP price and will not be changed going forward.” OnePlus customer support will reach out to anyone who bought the watch at the higher price and the company will refund the difference, he said.

OnePlus wouldn’t comment on the increase earlier this month, but as we wrote at the time, the most likely explanation is tariffs. By the time the watch had debuted, President Donald Trump’s tariffs on goods imported to the US from China had reached 145 percent. The same week, though, the US excluded smartphones and other electronics from the highest tariffs, although Trump soon promised that duties on them would be back “in a month or two.”