“Europe is a very important market for us and has been since the beginning of OnePlus,” the spokesperson told Engadget. “We’re doing some strategic restructuring in Europe, and in fact are even hiring in the region.”

One source added that the teams in Denmark, Finland, Netherlands and Belgium appear to be unaffected, as these are the markets where OnePlus apparently sees most potential. Several employees were also asked to relocate to Helsinki, which is understood to be replacing London as OnePlus’ new European headquarters.

One could easily blame the pandemic for OnePlus’ European restructuring, but signs were visible well beforehand. In the case of the UK, despite previous relationships, the OnePlus 8 series is carried by just one network: 3. For some reason, EE discontinued its partnership with the phone brand after carrying the much-hyped OnePlus 7 Pro 5G. Similarly, O2 no longer carries OnePlus phones after the 6T.

Ben Wood, Chief Analyst at CCS Insight, blamed OnePlus for struggling to expand beyond its finite number of fans, especially by shifting towards premium devices and thus even alienating some of its core fan base. The analyst went as far as calling the earlier OnePlus 7 line-up a “peak OnePlus” moment, as the heavily-invested OnePlus 7 Pro 5G that came afterwards struggled to sell. The phone quickly became a “firework product” when other more established brands like Samsung started delivering their 5G devices.

“Although OnePlus has had some notably strong relationships with carriers across Europe, there is growing evidence that it finds it hard to sustain relationships over a longer period,” Wood told Engadget. “This has seen OnePlus ‘jumping’ from one carrier to another with different generations of products. There also seems to be a growing sense that OnePlus has fallen into the trap of over-promising and under-delivering, which ironically is the complete opposite of how it behaved in the early days.”

OnePlus clearly has some tidying up to do, so maybe this is a much-needed restructuring after all. The company still has other tricks up its sleeve, namely the rumored low-cost OnePlus 8 Lite which may win old fans as well as new customers over. And let’s not forget the OnePlus TV line-up which are currently exclusive to India. We shall see how many of these will need to be shipped to make up for the checks for Robert Downey Jr.

In a statement, Dixons Carphone says that it expects around 1,800 people to take new jobs with the company. It expects to make 2,900 people redundant as a consequence of the closures, around 60 percent of those affected. The hope is, with the closures and associated cost-savings, the company can stop losing money on its mobile retail business, which is expected to make a £90 million ($109 million) loss this year.

The company says that a variety of factors have hurt its business, including the fact that people are “replacing their handsets less often” and often “buying them separately.” That reduces the need for a dedicated phone retail outlet on every street corner, especially when carriers have their own stores too. As part of the restructuring, the Dixons Carphone has asked to be released from its sales target-led deals.

Mass-closure of all of CPW’s outlets represents the end for a company that once thrived as a major independent phone retailer. In 2014, CPW was a behemoth, with 2,000 stores and stakes in mobile operators, shortly before it merged with the equally big Dixons. The intervening years have seen a lot of retail activity move online, especially in the phone space where it’s very easy to negotiate a contract.

Electronics retail giant Dixons has similarly felt the pinch, and while it had 950 outlets in 2014, that figure has fallen to 305. After the merger, noises began emerging that not all was well, and that trends were hurting the combined business’ bottom line.

In 2017, CPW issued guidance saying profits would drop, citing a lack of “innovation” in the phone business (and the ever-higher price of flagship handsets, which acted as a deterrent for casual upgraders). A year after that, and the combined company was the victim of a cyber attack that compromised as many as 10 million personal accounts.

It does appear, however, that the days of being able to casually browse handsets at your local phone shop is now a thing of the past. In its place is online sales and contract negotiation, and if you’re not happy, you can always trek out to your regional Currys PCWorld Carphone Warehouse.