It was April 2014, when the exceedingly competitive smartphone market faced one of its most promising underdog, OnePlus. With a core agenda of providing the best Android experience, this new Chinese OEM disrupted the industry merely in a time span of months through its first-ever offering, simply named OnePlus One, and with the claim of being a “flagship killer”. It was cheap, powerful, had just the right specifications, and more importantly, provided a glimpse into how OnePlus wants to lead the rivalry – by offering a quintessential product without worrying about the marketing or putting up billboards outside airports. Selling over a Million units in less than a year regardless of the horrible invite system and a complete absence of customer service, they outran their initial target of 50,000 units skillfully.
But that was then, OnePlus is now three years old and no longer carries a “startup” tag. They’re currently on their third generation flagship and despite being criticized heavily about the second one, the company is showing no signs of slowing down. However, in this lengthy period, a bunch of things have changed, most notably, the smartphone market itself. OnePlus is the first manufacturer to perfectly clown the premium flagship experience in their affordable handsets with top-of-the-line specifications, every other new or old company is following that now. The smartphone sphere is overloaded with variety and the most astonishing thing is, you don’t have to pay all that much to get an above average package. Although, you might have overlooked how OnePlus is strategizing its actions now.
Baby Steps
The biggest focus OnePlus maintains, in my opinion, is that they don’t want you to compromise on quality. They’re neither trying to sell you cheap products nor attempting to trick you by stuffing gimmicky features in their phones. If you have been paying close attention, you might have noticed that with each iteration, OnePlus is marginally stepping up their smartphone prices – OnePlus One retailed at $299, OnePlus 2’s launch price was $329 and lastly, OnePlus is now selling for $399. It is also worth mentioning that a couple of rumors point at the upcoming OnePlus 3T smartphone which is rumored to be priced even higher, somewhere around $480. So, yes, OnePlus is gradually invading the premium segment and to be fair, they are doing nothing unethical in the process. Generally, when a relatively new company tries to hurdle that barrier, they usually encounter hurdles, for instance, Xiaomi, Coolpad, Huawei, or any other you can think of who has tried to sell a premium product after successfully peddling in the budget area.
OnePlus is progressively checking all the right marks and at the same time, they’re making sure that the price doesn’t feel iniquitous. The latest OnePlus 3 is considered the best handset of 2016 among many and that’s not just because of the price, it’s due to the overall feature to price ratio.
You can create a cheap phone with great specs but contriving that level of satisfactory experience is what OnePlus excels at. The OnePlus One I bought back in early 2015 still functions like a charm and is among the top phones to receive developers’ support consistently. It is evident that OnePlus doesn’t want to encounter incompetence at this level as they’re standing on thin ice especially in terms of profits. OnePlus is still comparatively new, hence, the most important thing for them currently is to build a positively recognized brand so that people won’t think of it is as, well, new. And to fashion that goal, they have also overhauled and eliminated a series of drawbacks they were constrained to before.
Goodbye Invite System
It’s not a mind-numbingly painful task to purchase a OnePlus handset anymore. The company eliminated the most frustrating aspect of its service which “was” the invite system. Since the OnePlus 3, customers are able to make a purchase without having to wait in a ridiculously long queue or plead their requests in online contests. The alteration wasn’t really to favor the sales numbers, it was solely for aiding the disappointed customers. Even with previous handsets, OnePlus did astonishingly well in the market as they were able to create the required hype by indirectly declaring their products as a privilege to own. OnePlus 3 is doing just as well, however, they now have a far better fan following and customer satisfaction level.
In order to maintain a standard quality of its products, OnePlus also isn’t going all out and launching a ton of budget phones to see what clicks. The company has officially stated that they’ll be ditching the X series or any other budget lineup for that matter to focus completely on a single flagship series. This, in turn, allows them to streamline and closely control the experience without branching them out to a ton of devices and of course, not compromise on quality. Not to mention, the higher complexity that comes with spares and technical support.
Therefore, if you do want a cheaper OnePlus handset, you’ll have to settle for the previous generations which in itself, is another major aspect of this company’s strategy. You see, OnePlus doesn’t give up on its old phones in months because they keep selling even after a year of the launch date. Unlike most OEMs who hardly release any major updates after a year, phones from OnePlus get updated and the best part is, third-party ROM compatibility is quite commendable. Even though customers face some significant delays, OnePlus, as promised, does roll them out eventually. Hardware will expire sooner or later, however, if your software isn’t outdated, the phone will live a much longer and healthier life.
Rowing Towards Becoming a Lifestyle Brand
OnePlus’ co-founder, Carl Pei has been a Steve Jobs worshiper for years and that shows in what he believes and what his company stands for. Instead of popularizing their products as merely Value for Money tools, OnePlus alike Apple or even HTC is going for building a lifestyle everyone could adapt to. A big part of that also reflects in the accessories they sell and the core features they primarily focus on. By offering smartphone back panels in materials such as the sandstone, kevlar, bamboo allows them to create a fashionable environment. Furthermore, they’ve been promoting their releases by taking a different approach and partnering with brands like Uber and Ola. Setting up experience zones and pop-up stores allows them to advertise these relationships without having to establish offline retail shops which will obviously, result in higher costs and limited reach.
Unlike most other Chinese companies who struggle to jumpstart in the US or Europe, OnePlus could smartly address these challenging markets from Day One, with their own online store and relying on their forums for marketing. It partnered with a biggie like Amazon to address another challenging market, i.e India. From the beginning, OnePlus has managed to be present in three of the biggest smartphone markets in the world – the US, China and India.
Customers who’ve been part of this, feel privileged and in most cases, don’t opt for any other brand once rolled in. And that’s not really because of the software foundations like Apple, it’s because of OnePlus’ meticulous attention to the people it serves. Despite the saturating market, OnePlus has still managed to maintain that required “wow factor” year after year. Their products have steadily evolved, be it the design which is now all metal, or the software that has substantially improved, or the camera that can go toe-to-toe with the best out there, or the performance that is undoubtedly incredible, and a whole lot more. OnePlus is also researching and innovating various ways in which other smartphone OEMs suffer like the Dash charging solution that intuitively doesn’t make your phone a burning furnace. We have a separate article if you would like to read in detail.
It’s been an adventurous journey for OnePlus so far. However, they’ve just started. The OnePlus 3 is the catalyst that will help push their brand into the premium sector. Unlike previous years, customers, as well as professionals, have praised their efforts and other than nitpicking, unable to find the deal-breaking flaw. Every smartphone, whether budget or high-end, goes through a standard OnePlus 3 comparison now which is just fascinating. For a three-year-old company, OnePlus has already managed to create a strong case for itself and is only getting better. Now that people are starting to flaunt them as a tier-1 brand, it will be interesting to see how OnePlus further builds upon them and directly take on the leaders like Apple or Samsung.
© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2016. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |
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