About the Company
OnePlus is a Chinese based smartphone company established in 2013, by the once vice president of Oppo Pete Lau and Carl Pei. Headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong the company currently operates in 43 countries and regions around the world. The company is currently a subsidiary of the Oppo, which is the only institutional investor. However, OnePlus is currently seeking other investors. The company is new to the industry but had gained significant attention with its extensive sales of quality mobile phones in markets that seek economic options
OnePlus had been founded with a goal to create high end smart phones at economic prices. The company’s motto is “never Settles” which indicates that a valuable customer in the smartphone industry would not settle for a low quality device. They strongly believe that the quality of the product has to be outstanding for the company to survive in the market.
OnePlus also believes that just standing out does not increase the sales of the company. They believe that even if their smartphones are similar to several others, the user experience, quality and interfaces have to be unmatched. The sandstone version of OnePlus is one of their products that hit a bench mark with its exclusive back cover, remarked for its strong build quality. They aim to be the best in their industry by investing on customer experience and user friendly features. In an endeavour to pursue the same, they have also invested in a custom ROM CyanogenMod developed by Cyanogen Inc. for their Android devices.
The OnePlus brand in well-known is South East Asia, with India and China being major markets. The company also has a strong market in all European countries apart from Switzerland. Its products are now available in over 43 regions (Versavel, 2016).
The company has till date launched 5 devices into the market since its inception with one triumphing over the other and doing extremely well in case of sales. Its first ever device was launched on 23rd of April 2014 name OnePlus One.
Internationally released on 6th June 2014, “bacon” or OnePlus One was the first model of OnePlus. Launched in two versions, 32 GB and 64 GB, OnePlus One was one of the most anticipated phones of that year, given its competitive price of $299 and $349 respectively.
The 2015 Flagship killer OnePlus Two, was hyped in the market before release given the success of its predecessor. Released on 27th of July 2015, the mobile was first to carry a USB type C port and ditch the traditional micro USB port making it known for its little innovations (Wee, 2015). Marketing was done through a YouTube Techie who had provided a detailed investigation on the parts and services provided by the phone.
Motto and Objectives of the company
Introduced on 29th of October 2015, the X came with a 5 inch screen unlike its predecessor which were launched with 5.5” screens. Though most of the internal components remained same, the AMOLED had gained the sales for the company (Wee, 2016)
Launched on 14th of June 2015, the protected suited up in a metal unibody. A 6 GB RAM, 64 GB storage the phone had come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 (Wee, 2016). The phone was well received again due to its quality of both its internal and external features and low price when compared to its competitors.
With a minor upgrade from Snapdragon 820 to Snapdragon 821, 3T was launched on 15th November 2016, with a high amp battery, 128 GB of storage and a 16 MP front camera (Wee, 2017).
The mobile industry is perhaps one of the most competitive fields with Apple being the bench mark for all the products released in this segment. It is known for a high entry barrier, aggressive competition. Most of the customers either buy a premium product or one that is of low cost (Luo, 2017). Hence, for a competitor to survive at least one of these have to be satisfied. The highly demanded mobile phones tend to have both these qualities in them (Cecere, 2015). From Motorola to Nokia, to now retailers such as Samsung and OnePlus each of them try to bring in phones that are carry unique features and yet at the same time are cheap (Simon, 2016).
The mobile market is highly stable in case of demand. However, the customers are volatile with the expectations from the mobile phone. Given the advent of mobile internet, 4G technology and the boom of social media, the market has become a highly demanding segment. The need for best quality images, easy user interface and highly stable OS has become more and more necessary. Customers are willing spend a little more for the quality than to settle on mobiles that won’t last a year. At the same time the excess amount to be spend should still be economical.
The customer segments are usually limited to the investment made by customers as all other features of mobile phones are in demand through all segments. The Premium customers opt for highly priced mobiles such as the Apple Inc., products that deliver extraordinary services with high quality. The moderate customers generate the highest sales as they demand an economic option of good quality products which most companies produce. The lower level customers opt for quality phones with minimum features. However, this number is steadily decreasing.
Global Presence
Below are the key competitors to the best mobile brand Apple.
Figure 1: Market Share of various companies in the mobile market
Strengths
- Smart marketing campaigns such as invite based sales, flash sales and virtual marketing.
- JIT inventory and made to order life cycle
- High Quality products at low prices
- Exemplary Service centres
- High Price performance ratio (Arike, 2015)
Weakness
- Limited Products
- All products in medium price range and hence not available for low economy market
- Limited sales and not easily available
- Restricted to Europe and South East Asia
- Controversial campaigns
Opportunities
- Using different distribution channels
- Entry into Tablets industry
- Target different segments include higher and lower economy
- Spread into several other countries and regions
Threats
- Highly competitive market
- Increasing number of new entries
- High Marketing and advertising costs
- Low cost units made in China and sold primarily in South East Asia where economic products are high in demand (Downes, 2015).
- Aggressive invite based sales
- Virtual marketing through video campaigns
- Intelligent Inventory Management that takes minimum working capital considerably decreasing inventory risks (Shim, 2016)
- Sales and Distribution through select channels making the product exclusive
Out of all the above mentioned aspects of the business model of OnePlus, the key feature that the organization has to concentrate on is the virtual marketing that the company does. There are several companies that follow this trend but since OnePlus has many exclusive aspects in their business model it is necessary to improvise on their marketing skills as well. Virtual marketing is the future marketing way as the costs incurred for the same are considerably low. And given that OnePlus operates in markets where mobile internet is a regular practice, it is also the best way to reach all its customers.
The company has already had good campaign such as video marketing where customers were asked to send a video of eliminating their old phones and for OnePlus Two, YouTube Techie has advetertised about the phone through a video explaining its features in details. The company can go a step ahead and advertise through YouTube Ads, Instagram Ads and Facebook Ads (Ström, 2014). The company can also draw inspiration from the “Shot from iPhone” campaign when images taken by customers are used on bill boards. It is crucial in the digital world to make use of virtual marketing to reach the technology craze, economy seeking customers.
Conclusion
OnePlus is new to the industry and has currently 5 products in 43 regions. They are known for their exclusive marketing campaigns and intelligent inventory management that use a make to order strategy to ensure that the inventory is neither surplus not exhausted. The company focuses on high quality economic products to survive in the highly competitive mobile industry. It serves the moderate segment customers who constantly search for economic yet premium products and OnePlus is currently one of the best mobile manufacturer in its segment.
References
Arike, A. (2015). Navigating through the competitive global Android smart phone market, case study on OnePlus.
Cecere, G., Corrocher, N., & Battaglia, R. D. (2015). Innovation and competition in the smartphone industry: Is there a dominant design?. Telecommunications Policy, 39(3), 162-175.
Downes, L., & Nunes, P. (2015). Big Bang Disruption Comes to China.
Luo, Y., & Bu, J. (2017). Contextualizing international strategy by emerging market firms: A composition-based approach. Journal of World Business.
Shim, Y., & Shin, D. H. (2016). Neo-techno nationalism: The case of China’s handset industry. Telecommunications Policy, 40(2), 197-209.
Simon, J. P., & Simon, J. P. (2016). How Europe missed the mobile wave. info, 18(4), 12-32.
Ström, R., Vendel, M., & Bredican, J. (2014). Mobile marketing: A literature review on its value for consumers and retailers. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 21(6), 1001-1012.
Versavel, M., & Lammens, H. (2016). The OnePlus phone: evaluation of the company’s strategy and determination of the customers’ brand perception and buying triggers. Language.
Wee, A. (2015). OnePlus Two in-depth review: This is why we like & dislike it.
Wee, A. (2016). Champagne Gold OnePlus X: A new definition of chic and the luxury?.
Wee, A. (2016). OnePlus 3 standard and enhanced variant leaked, priced from RM1, 890!.
Wee, A. (2017). OnePlus 3T now available in Malaysia at RM2299!. Sign.
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