S1 Ep 8 Tech Giants
OnePlus
NEVER SETTLE
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Oneplus:-
NEVER SETTLE |
Introduction
In 2008, Apple revolutionized the industry by launching iPhone. After that, Samsung followed their step using Android Operating. Till 2015 Apple and Samsung Were giants in the Smartphone industry, and no one was near them. Apple has iPhone numeric series that falls under the Flagship category, and Samsung has many series like low-range, mid-range, and flagship lineup. The flagship category is the company's frontline product having most of the top-notch specifications. Apple has its own operating system, iOS, whereas Samsung uses android, which is developed by Google. Every year both companies launch flagship smartphones. One of the limitations of the flagship product has a high price by which most buyer can't afford to buy them. But after 2015, most of the things changed, and a new category was introduced, flagship killer.
Origin of Oneplus(Flagship killer)
A Hardware engineer and a marketing manager of oppo electronic(a Chinese company). Left Oppo in 2013 to achieve their dream of building a Smartphone company. Those two guys are Carl Pei and Pete Lau. Pete Lau was a hardware engineer, and after became vice president of oppo, Carl was working under Pete in the oppo. Carl and Pete Part away from Oppo and established the OnePlus Smartphone company in 2013. At first, they only had 5 employees. They come together in a cafe every day to work as all startups in the early phases do. All of the employee and Founder uses apple's iPhone as their primary Smartphone, but they were working on Android-based device. So they point out the limitation of the android Smartphone industry like design, user experience, etc., and why they were using the iPhone as the primary. Both of them know android has a larger market, but users' trust is towards apple's iPhone. So they were moving toward revolutionizing the industry with these changes.
Carl Pei was brought up in Sweden. At the age of 18, he goes to China. His friend called him, and they started a Website in which they sell their speakers. They buy the speakers from the factory and rebrand them, then sell them on the website. After 1 year of selling the speaker, his family calls him back to Sweden to study. He dropped from college after 3 years and go again to China and launch a fan website in which he promotes products of Meizu by which he gets a job in Meizu in the marketing department. He did a job there for 1 year, but he gets a job offer from Oppo as an international marketing manager after that. In Pete's case, he joined oppo as a hardware engineer, but after some time, he became head of the blue-ray department and became vice president of oppo.
One of the main reasons for establishing OnePlus to provide premium quality smartphones at a lower price. Which will give worth a single penny of the consumer. All premium smartphones, including iPhones, are too expensive. So they decided to build a smartphone that serves consumers' money. This Idea was going to give birth to the category that changes the industry positively.
- Flagship Killer:- A device that offers the most top-notch specification like processor, camera, display and etc. have less price in comparison to Flagship smartphone by which this product kills the market of flagship devices.
OnePlus One
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OnePlus One
(SRC: Maurizio Pesce) |
Pete, while working in oppo, introduced a cyanogen mod to one of Oppo's phones. He was fascinated by cyanogen mod. So he also uses cyanogen mod in Oneplus 1. In April 2014, the OnePlus one launched. It became popular very fast. But the selling process of Oneplus was not the traditional way like selling on the store, but they opt invite-only selling approach. Every expert said this selling approach will not be successful, but it had. In such a short time span of a year, OnePlus became successful and sold 1.5 million units of the OnePlus One globally. This number blew the expectations of the founder of the company. And the most surprising thing was there was no marketing like advertising was involved but after that, onePlus outperformed. OnePlus was successful in the whole world, including India. India is a big smartphone market; therefore, OnePlus was really concern about India. But there was an Issue in India related to Cyanogen mod.
Oxygen OS
It all started with a lawsuit filed in the Indian court. Micromax is a Smartphone Company in India that has a child company name YU. Which had an exclusive right to distribute the Cyanogen mod in India. So all Oneplus Ones were on hold in India because of this Issue. And the OnePlus claims that the contract between Cyanogen Mod's company and Micromax was only applied to Indian manufacturing company but OnePlus was outsourcing them. But Delhi High court of India bans Oneplus from India. Many people can think it's not a big deal that India bans the Devices because Oneplus can sell many devices in other countries. But a billion consumer market is very tempting, and it can't be ignored. So OnePlus team start to work on their own Operating System, which can run on android. So they came up with Oxygen OS. Even boosted sales worldwide, and India took off the ban in December 2014.
That's how Oneplus made Oxygen OS. But OnePlus Uses Different Operating systems, Specifically in the Chinese market called Hydrogen os. So after some time, they merge the interface of both OS. Oxygen OS faces backlash also because of collecting sensitive data under an application named "DeviceManagerservices."
Growth
After launching OnePlus One and Oxygen OS, the company was on the verge of success. After a year, OnePlus launched Oneplus two in April 2015. It was not a great success because of the processor it comes with. Snapdragon 810 had a heating issue, and it became infamous. Carl said that they were too arrogant on Oneplus two, and there was one more reason for failure. That was customer care services but Oneplus later improved.
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Robert Downey Jr Ambassador of OnePlus
(SRC: Vincent Zafra / Illusion Story) |
Also, In India, Amitabh Bachchan endorse the company initially, but he was replaced by Robert Downey Jr., famous for sherlock and ironman, in May 2019
There was a buzz in 2015 that Oneplus was going to launch 2nd phone in the year. Carl Pei downplays by saying there will be only one flagship Smartphone in the year, then all rumors stopped. But in October 2015, Oneplus launched a device called Oneplus X which not premium devices which support the Carl statement. It was a kinda mid-range phone, around $370. After that, Oneplus launches, T lineup with Oneplus 3T. It was fluent every device which were launching having great success. But in 2020, another(after all virus issue) shocking comes out from one plus head that Carl Pei Left the Oneplus. It was shocking because Carl was the founder and face of the company.
Why Carl Pei left Oneplus?
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Carl Pei
(SRC: TechCrunch) |
It all starts back around 2015-16. Oppo was the major investor in the Company, and Oneplus uses Oppo's manufacturing lines and uses some stuff. But you can see the difference between Oneplus product and Oppo's product. But after leaving Oneplus, Carl state many times, no one wants similar phones as other companies, which gave a hint that after Some time, Oneplus's product was similar to other companies' devices. You can also check the MKBHD channel. He did a great job in comparing Oneplus all devices. So Carl Pei starts a new company called Nothing right. It is literally called Nothing. What is going on with this meme name like Boring by Elon musk? Please let me know in the comment section how much do you like this article. If this article was helpful, please share this with your friend and family.
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