Well, I admit there is a particular group of people who drools over the products of Apple but did you guys not see how strategically OnePlus became the premium mobile brand around the world. Leaving iOS aside, OnePlus to date has become the best mobile company with Android OS because the founders wanted to improve the existing user experience cost-effectively.
Before OnePlus was launched in 2013, Samsung and Nokia mobiles ruled in the world of Android OS smartphones. But, brands like these faced an unexpected downfall when OnePlus started setting the market on fire with its alluring flagship products.OnePlus was launched in 16th December 2013 by Pete Lau and Carl Pei. The company is based on China and currently, its annual revenue is $1.9 billion.
Pete Lau
Lau passed out from Zhejiang University in 1998 and joined Oppo Electronics. He worked there as a hardware engineer and with time became the director of Oppo’s Blu-ray division. Attaining the peak of his career just started with his promotion to the position of head of marketing of Oppo. Lau was soon named as the Vice President of the company and he was solely responsible for incorporating Android OS in Oppo smartphones. He stepped down from his position and quit Oppo in November 2013.
Carl Pei
Pei went to Stockholm School of Economics to pursue his Bachelor’s degree in Science but he dropped out soon and started working in the smartphone industry. Before he dropped out of college, he started working at Nokia and continued for three months. In 2011, Pei joined Meizu and worked there as a full-time employee. After a year, Pei joined Oppo in 2012 and started working there as an international market manager. Pei worked under Lau and both of them together came up with the idea of OnePlus.
A café conversation
The idea of OnePlus exclusively and solely came out of a coffee table conversation while discussing smartphones and how the user experience can be made better. The founders noticed that most of the population tends to use the iPhone and not Android. The question was why? Aftermarket research and recording the feedbacks of users, they concluded that most of them either have faulty software or the quality is not up to the mark. So, both of them started their new start-up and at the beginning OnePlus only had five employees.
Launch and Success
When the two of them were working on their new project of OnePlus, their main motive was to build a product with a minimal amount of cost and which can provide the best user experience. When they were ready with the product, the strategy of launching was very off-track. They didn’t want to sell the product through conventional retailers and pursued the audience in an only way.
The marketing experts said that the idea might face a strict downfall as the model was based on high priced subscription method. But, the prediction was proved wrong when OnePlus breaking the records of every successful mobile company ever sold 1.5 million OnePlus smartphones in a single year.
The product became famous as the “Flagship killer” and the magnitude of success was enormous. Lau expected 50,000 units sell and it crossed millions. The first product was OnePlus One and it was first marketed outside China in 2015. OnePlus expanded to South-East Asia after they partnered with Lazada Indonesia.
The next product of OnePlus, OnePlus 2 was released in July 2015. The next year company lifted the invite-only system on OnePlus 3 followed by making it available in the markets of China, North America, the European Union and also in Amazon India.
The company’s profit became thrice in the financial year 2017-2018 and the annual revenue almost increased to five times within a single year. The company’s goal turned out to become a huge success as most of the users rated their smartphones 4 stars or more.
In early 2018, the launch of OnePlus 6 broke into the market like a plague and even outran the market for Apple iPhone. Within the next half of the year, OnePlus 6 became the highest selling flagship product of the company.
India majorly contributes to the success of OnePlus products as Lau (CEO of OnePLus) said in an interview that India is accountable for OnePlus’s 2018s global revenue of $1.4 billion.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more