ALL ABOUT ONEPLUS AND THEIR BUSINESS ALL OVER THE WORLD: WHY SO PREMIUM

OnePlus  is a Shenzhen-based Chinese smartphone manufacturer founded by Pete Lau (CEO) and Carl Pei in December 2013. The company officially serves 34 countries and regions around the world as of July 2018.They have released numerous phones, amongst other products.

Birth Of a new brand 

OnePlus was founded on 16 December 2013 by former Oppo vice-president Pete Lau and Carl Pei.

The company is based out of Shenzhen, Guangdong and has presence in 43 countries around the world as of March 2016. The co-founder includes Carl Pei. Initially denying the claims that OnePlus is a subsidiary of the OPPO, it was later revealed as per the Chinese government documentation that it is truly the wholly owned subsidiary of OPPO. Thus, technically making it a company owned by BBK Electronics, as OPPO is the sub brand of the Chinese multinational group. In result, OnePlus can be said as the sub-brand of the sub-brand. That’s quite an inception.

But t the mean ime,OPPO and Vivo are focused in creating and maintain themselves as premium offline smartphone brands, OnePlus aims to deliver their products via online services. Over the past couple of years of its operations, company has tied up with several online retailers, while the key player for selling their handset being Amazon, when it comes to the sales outside China. In their home country, they sell their products via their website store. Continuing the association of Cyanogen formed when OPPO N1 was loaded with CyanogenMod, OnePlus entered into an exclusive licensing deal with the American software company. This deal later fall apart after the controversy as Cyanogen inked another exclusive deal with Yu Televentures, an Indian smartphone brand, which is the branchild of the Micromax fame Rahul Sharma. It later resulted in creation of Oxygen OS, which is an in house operating system developed by the company. CM was removed from all the old models as an update for Oxygen OS was provided while the new OnePlus handsets saw their custom Android OS out of the box.

Products & Growth

 OnePlus One, was launched by the company on April 23rd, 2014; just a couple of months after the company was formed. It aggressive pricing and ground breaking specifications, the company also introduced first its kind invite system to purchase their first handset, it received a lot of heat from the smartphone consumers who wanted to buy their handsets but couldn’t because of the invite system. With the further launch of products the invite system was improved, and in some countries the devices has been made invite-free. Later, the company announced the successor, which was dubbed as “Flagship Killer of 2016”, the OnePlus 2, unveiled in July 2015 in their home country while the international release was in August 2015. The company claimed that their handset is so good that it can compete with the devices that are stated for launch in 2016. Carl Pei, the co-founder seemed more amused by the first 5-inch device which they unveiled on October 29th 2015. The international release of OnePlus X happened on 5th November 2015.

As per the annual report card of 2014 posted by company, they have earned over $300 Million revenue in that year. The company didn’t specify how many handsets they have actually sold, but it has been speculated by reports popping up on internet that number comes up to 1 Million. The top regions accounting their sales include East Asia and Europe as they amounted for 39% and 32% sales of their device in 2014. The brand hasn’t posted anything recently about the sales figures of OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X. Which is why, there are rumors that company has fallen short of their targets for 2015, despite selling out all units in the first batch.

The invite system, and its discontinuation

Early phones were only available through a system whereby customers had to sign up for an invite to purchase the phone at irregular intervals. The system was claimed to be necessary for the young company to manage huge demand. OnePlus ended the invite system with the launch of OnePlus 3 on 14 June 2016. Announced via an interactive VR launch event, the OnePlus 3 initially went on sale within the VR app itself. OnePlus touted the event as the world's first VR shopping experience.^[16] The phone was made available for sale later that day in China, North America and the European Union on the OnePlus website, and in India on Amazon India.

"Smash the Past" campaign

On 25 April 2014, OnePlus began its "Smash the Past" campaign. The promotion asked selected participants to destroy their phones on video in an effort to purchase the OnePlus One for $1 (US). Due to confusion, several videos were published by unselected users misinterpreting the promotion and destroying their phones before the promotion start date.

The campaign was heavily criticized for environmental waste and safety concerns, due to batteries and phone components posing potential hazards to participants destroying their phones. OnePlus allowed the winners to donate the old phone. There were 140,000 entrants in the contest with 100 winners.

Warranty rejections

OnePlus One issue with yellow display band at the bottom of the screen which affected some units were not covered under warranty. A similar issue was reported for Oppo Find 7 and Oppo Find 7a and Oppo covered it under warranty.

Ladies First

On 13 August 2014, OnePlus hosted a contest to give invites, which were hard to come by at the time, to their female forum members. Users were asked to post a photo of themselves with the OnePlus logo, images would be shared in the forum and could be "liked" by other forum members. Hours after being announced, the campaign was stopped because of the sexist implications in the election process. OnePlus stated that a few "rogue" employees created the campaign.

Ban in India

On 16 December 2014, The Supreme Court of India and Delhi High Court banned the import and sales of OnePlus One phones in India following a lawsuit by Micromax alleging it has exclusivity for shipping phones with Cyanogen OS software in India.

As of 21 December 2014, the banning of import and selling of the device in India has been lifted. The device continues to be shipped with Cyanogen OS; however, a customised version of Android

 specially designed by OnePlus and named OxygenOS has been released, allowing later OnePlus devices to be sold in India.

Cease of operations in Indonesia

OnePlus made its products available in Southeast Asia for the first time, partnering with Lazada Indonesia on 23 January 2015 and was expected to expand during that year throughout the region.

In June 2016, OnePlus made the decision to pull out of the Indonesian market due to local regulations for imported 4G smartphones restricting sales of the OnePlus 2. After-sales support such as warranty claims and repairs for the OnePlus One and X were taken over by PT Multi Mobile Indonesia.

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India Presence

OnePlus stepped into India officially in December 2014, which is when the company started selling the OnePlus One in the country via Amazon. Now the 2014 smartphone is also available on Flipkart, another online retailing website in India. Indian audience were among few to enjoy the early availability of new OnePlus products, and that’s what we hope Vikas Agarwal, General Manager of OnePlus India would want to keep active for the upcoming smartphones, as OnePlus 3 is in the making for this year. In terms of the sales India has contributed a lot, while for the first year, the brand has missed their target of selling 1 Million smartphones. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as the company is still young and has a long way to go to capture more Indian audience.

Unlike its parent company, OPPO and sibling company (Since it’s a part of BBK Electronics), Vivo, they don’t have any plans to setup manufacturing plans to make phones in India as of now. But when in future the sales figures grow double digits Millions, it can be expected that the young Chinese mobile company would express their interest in “Make in India” campaign.