• Send Us A Tip
  • Calling all Tech Writers
  • Advertise
Thursday, July 10, 2025
  • Login
TechStory
  • News
  • Crypto
  • Gadgets
  • Memes
  • Gaming
  • Cars
  • AI
  • Startups
  • Markets
  • How to
No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Crypto
  • Gadgets
  • Memes
  • Gaming
  • Cars
  • AI
  • Startups
  • Markets
  • How to
No Result
View All Result
TechStory
No Result
View All Result
Home Business

OnePlus and The Story Of How It All Started

by Shruti Jani
May 15, 2019
in Business, Inspiration, Stories
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
OnePlus

OnePlus 7; Credits: Creative Commons

TwitterWhatsappLinkedin
OnePlus
OnePlus 7;
Credits: Creative Commons

What if I told you that a company, that was freshly founded in 2013 made $1billion USD within two years of its founding i.e. in 2015? What if I told you that this company paved the way and created a wave of products that can be affordable yet give cutting edge competition to its (much more expensive) counterparts? What if I told you that one company absolutely disrupted a market that was saturated, made of bigger and much more valuable corporations- a feat that has rarely been achieved.

You might also like

Trump Unleashes New Tariffs, Sri Lanka Among Seven Nations Facing 30% US Duties

Starlink Clears Final Regulatory Hurdle, Poised for Launch in India

Nvidia Shatters Records with $4 Trillion Market Value Amidst AI Supremacy

Well, these are not just things I tell you. These are things that are happening. It’s high time we at TechStory covered the story of the newest and biggest smartphone company on the block: OnePlus.

The Philosophy

OnePlus was founded by two men named Pete Lau and Carl Pei. While Lau was the former vice -president of the now OnePlus competitor Oppo, Carl Pei was a computer programmer by trade.

“The entire thing started as a coffee-table conversation in August 2013 between a bunch of early OnePlus employees—at the time, just friends. We had our phones on the table and we noticed that everyone was using iPhone. This was surprising—some of us were working at other smartphone manufacturers making Android phones.So we asked ourselves, “Why do people around this table all use iPhones?””

The two founders and OnePlus as a company at large started off with an aim to make a  “balance high-end quality with a lower price than other phones in its class”. This ethos is of course now represented by their tagline- Never Settle.

“Never Settle” as an ideology comes from the fact that users shouldn’t have to settle for a substandard phone just because they do not have a massive budget to upgrade.

“We will create a more beautiful and higher quality product,” Lau says. “We will never be different just for the sake of being different. Everything done has to improve the actual user experience in day-to-day use We both just want to create the best product, no matter what.”

How Did It All Begin?

The company launched the first phone called OnePlus One on the 23rd of April in 2014.

If one remembers correctly, then they will know that the OnePlus One was launched as an extremely exclusive phone which one could only obtain with an invite in India. The phone was shipped by Amazon and was the first phone of its kind which was available online. One would receive an invite, go onto Amazon, purchase the phone, and voila! They were now a part of an exclusive club of people owning a OnePlus One.

While OnePlus says that it was using the invite strategy to bottleneck the huge demand that would flood the otherwise, the invites did something so much more. The invite strategy made the phone a status symbol and an immediate rage.

“The Nexus line had taught consumers that it’s possible to purchase phones online,” Lau says. “This was good for latecomers like us.”

OnePlus ran on Andoird and got into an exclusive agreement with a company called Cyanogen Inc. who built the Android OS for all OnePlus phones.

Growth and Scale

OnePlus launched in India with a promise to open 25 stores in the country in the future That number in 2019 now averages around 35 stores.

While the invite system was a rage and was the main method of purchase for the OnePlus One and OnePlus Two, it was discontinued once the company started scaling up with the launch of OnePlus 3 in June of 2016.

The phones also, in the beginning, were only sold in India. Of course, as the company grew it now sells in European as well as American counterpart countries such as  Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States.

The company is now in 38 regions, 21 countries and employees upwards of 1000 people.

OnePlus has released 7 generations of smartphones, with the OnePlus 7 and OnePlus  Pro the newest ones on the block. It has by far been one of the fastest growing smartphone companies with sales increasing by a whopping 45% between 2017 and 2018. Just one financial year and jumping that high in growth is not something just any company can do.

While the product has not officially been released yet the founders have also hinted at a OnePlus TV which will be a new division in OnePlus as a whole.

“We’re trying to push the envelope a little bit in the commoditized, boring smartphone market. For example, the OnePlus2 is the first flagship smartphone [to ship] with USB Type-C—a new standard that was coming to all types of electronics. It was in the new MacBook and Google’s Chromebook Pixel. People were asking us, “Why did you put it in a smartphone now, instead of waiting two years when it’s a standard?” From our perspective, someone has to push the envelope a little bit.

The company broke even in 2016 as their latest phone came out but underwent being under again as they decided to scale up once more.

But then for such a good phone, being so cheap- how does OnePlus make money anyway?

Pei says this to Fortune as an answer: “How do we make money? Obviously because we are using the Google suite of services, and we haven’t built any of our own, we’re not making money on software. We have to make all of our money on hardware. The difference is we don’t spend a lot of money on marketing. There, we save a bunch of money. Plus, we directly sell to the consumer.”

The Future

OnePlus has had its mishaps too, be it with failed campaigns or warranty rejection, but the company has stood back up and done what it does best- make a good phone and make it affordable

So far, not much has been disclosed about the future by OnePlus. For such a young company to come and make such big waves in the market, it does get unpredictable after a point. The only thing that can be known is, with the OnePlus 7 coming out, there is a lot to look forward to.

 

Tags: OneP;usONEPLUS 7smartphoneSmartphone Story
Tweet57SendShare16
Previous Post

Cab Sharing Firm Ola launches Credit Card in partnership with SBI

Next Post

Docttocare secured INR 4 cr in seed funding

Shruti Jani

Recommended For You

Trump Unleashes New Tariffs, Sri Lanka Among Seven Nations Facing 30% US Duties

by Anochie Esther
July 10, 2025
0
NRIs

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, July 9, 2025, announced a fresh wave of tariff demand letters, signaling a renewed and assertive push in his administration's trade policy....

Read more

Starlink Clears Final Regulatory Hurdle, Poised for Launch in India

by Anochie Esther
July 10, 2025
0
Starlink

After years of anticipation and navigating a complex regulatory landscape, Elon Musk's satellite internet venture, Starlink, has finally received the definitive green light to launch commercial operations in...

Read more

Nvidia Shatters Records with $4 Trillion Market Value Amidst AI Supremacy

by Anochie Esther
July 10, 2025
0
Nvidia

Nvidia, the undisputed leader in graphics processing units (GPUs) and a pivotal force in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, achieved a historic milestone on Wednesday, July 9, 2025....

Read more
Next Post
Docttocare secured INR 4 cr in seed funding

Docttocare secured INR 4 cr in seed funding

Please login to join discussion

Techstory

Tech and Business News from around the world. Follow along for latest in the world of Tech, AI, Crypto, EVs, Business Personalities and more.
reach us at [email protected]

Advertise With Us

Reach out at - [email protected]

BROWSE BY TAG

#Crypto #howto 2024 acquisition AI amazon Apple bitcoin Business China cryptocurrency e-commerce electric vehicles Elon Musk Ethereum facebook flipkart funding Gaming Google India Instagram Investment ios iPhone IPO Market Markets Meta Microsoft News NFT samsung Social Media SpaceX startup startups tech technology Tesla TikTok trend trending twitter US

© 2024 Techstory.in

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Crypto
  • Gadgets
  • Memes
  • Gaming
  • Cars
  • AI
  • Startups
  • Markets
  • How to

© 2024 Techstory.in

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?