Will O2 partner with Xiaomi or Honor bringing their flagships across anytime soon?

[Jordz94]

I know O2 kicked Honor out when Huawei had its issues with Google, would there be any chance of them going back to O2 or Xiaomi bringing their flagships across since there is only Samsung and Oppo flagships on pay monthly for now but Vodafone has more variety (Don't want to leave O2)

[Bambino]

@Jordz94 I will tag Chris_K from the social media team who will know, but don't get your hopes up.

[Chris_K]

Hey, sorry for the delay.

This is going to be a bit of a typical politician answer where I can't really directly answer the question, but I can kind of hint at a few things that may help.

Honor: We do have a partnership with Honor, though don't currently sell any of their smartphone devices. We have though in the past, selling devices such as the View20 for instance. Unless I'm mistaken, currently the only Honor device we sell the Band 5 fitness tracker at £29.99. Will we sell future Honor devices? Possibly, but it's impossible to say for sure I'm afraid as it depends on a lot of factors (more on that later)

Xiaomi: This is another brand we do have an active partnership with, currently selling devices such as the 12T Pro 5G, Redmi 9AT, Redmi Note 11 and more. If you're interested in a device not listed here, it may be that for whatever reason we have decided not to range it - but will we range *insert a future Xiaomi model here*? Possibly, but again it's impossible to say for sure.

Oppo: Though not mentioned, Oppo is another brand that's similar to Xiaomi and Honor, and again one we have a partnership with. In fact their brand new flagship, the Find N2 Flip, is currently on pre-order - and if you do pre-order, you can claim OPPO Enco X2 earphones. Ends 1 March.

Why do we sell some devices, but not others? Truthfully, it's a complex loaded question with a lot of factors involved. One thing to remember at the end of the day is that as a business, we look to sell the devices our customers want the most, and the way that translates is that we aim to provide the best range of devices to our customers rather than the widest. Our stores for example have limited storage space, as do our warehouses that have constant turnover - inbound deliveries, outbound deliveries, to stores and to customers, and inventory management can also play into that... More devices = more inventory space, more inventory management, more inventory planning, supply chain complexities, potentially wasted inventory and/or profits if we range devices that don't sell well, or quickly.

There's also other complex issues - sometimes, particularly for Chinese and Asian brands, their home market is their most important one and some devices may be exclusive to those markets, or there may be devices that we don't think would sell well in the UK market - hence decisions like these may influence what we do or don't range. There may also be cases where they have a European partner of choice for a specific device - so discussions of ranging it may never even happen in the first place.