A SHENZHEN-BASED smartphone company whose high-end products are little known outside a tech-savvy niche entered the U.S. market Monday with the backing of two key local allies — chipmaking giant Qualcomm and mobile operator T-Mobile US Inc. — and no questions from U.S. regulators. The foray by 5-year-old OnePlus comes after U.S. mobile carriers AT&T and Verizon this year backed away from plans to work with Huawei on high-end phones in face of pressure from the U.S. Government. The OnePlus alliance, announced at an event Monday in New York, shows how many China-U.S. business relationships, including those involving the most advanced technologies, are marching ahead despite the trade war. T-Mobile said the OnePlus 6T smartphone would launch exclusively at the carrier’s stores Thursday with a starting price of US$549, the first time a OnePlus handset has been sold through a U.S. wireless provider. While some OnePlus models have been on sale in the United States through e-commerce websites, carrier relationships like the one with T-Mobile are critical because most U.S. consumers still purchase phones through their carriers. “I don’t know if it is a good time for anybody else,” Carl Pei, the 29-year-old founder of OnePlus, said of entering the U.S. carrier-bundled phone market. “It is a good time for us.” Jon Freier, T-Mobile’s executive vice president of U.S. retail, said the Sino-U.S. trade tensions played no role in this deal and the carrier has not heard from U.S. regulators. “OnePlus has a sterling reputation, and we’ve researched the device and vetted it thoroughly,” Freier said. OnePlus is unusual among Chinese tech companies, which typically focus on mass-market products for domestic customers. OnePlus, by contrast, only sells premium phones that cost US$400 or more and almost exclusively online except in India. It derives two-thirds of its revenue from outside China and is the top seller of premium smartphones in India. OnePlus is affiliated with OPPO, a Chinese smartphone maker. The relationship helps OnePlus keep its costs low, said Canalys analyst Mo Jia. (SD-Agencies) | 