OnePlus 5 is out of stock, but it doesn't mean we'll see the OnePlus 6 soon

The OnePlus 5 was only released in June last year, but the phone is already out of stock on the UK and US stores starting speculation there may be a new phone just around the corner from the Chinese company.

All OnePlus 5 variants are out of stock in the US, while in the UK two out of the three versions are unavailable.

Both Slate Gray versions of the phone sporting either 6GB of RAM/64GB of storage and 8GB of RAM/128GB of storage look to be sold out, so you can only buy the soft gold version. Which is a shame – the handset ranks highly in our best Android phones list.

O2 however, the exclusive network for the OnePlus 5, still has stock according to its website. So while it's still possible to buy the phone in the UK, you'll be tied to a network contract, rather than having the SIM-free freedom that buying direct from OnePlus would offer.

News sites have been quick to speculate it could mean the OnePlus 5T may be just around the corner in a similar move to when the company announced the OnePlus 3T in November 2016.

Are new phones coming?

We're hesitant that we'll see a OnePlus 5T variant though. By this time last year we saw far more rumors about the OnePlus 3T and this year there seems a lot less reason for the company to make a replacement phone.

The OnePlus 3T was released with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset inside after the OnePlus 3 packed the poorer Snapdragon 820 and failed to impress in terms of power.

This year Qualcomm has only released the top end Snapdragon 835, which sits inside the OnePlus 5, so there doesn't seem to be much reason to update the new phone soon.

It's likely this will just be a stock issue for OnePlus. It's something the company has struggled with in the past as it's a small firm that gained a lot of attention and therefore sold beyond its ability to meet demand.

All of this doesn't stop people speculating about the OnePlus 6 though, and while we initially expected it to come out a full year after the OnePlus 5 it may turn out the company is releasing it soon instead.

We've asked OnePlus for comment on why stock is low on the OnePlus 5 and we'll be sure to update this story as soon as we hear more.