The OnePlus One is the mobile market’s closest thing to a unicorn if there ever was one. A device that’s super high end but low priced, and notoriously difficult to come by, only mainland China has seen any wide-spread release of the product at this point and it doesn’t look like that’s going to end all that soon anyway. If you haven’t been following the OnePlus saga and all the ups and downs the company has had since launching its first smartphone in early summer, it’s OK since you’ve not been too likely to get the device in the first place. As OnePlus continues the invite system, the Chinese company looks toward the future and in markets where it currently doesn’t sell the phone, namely India, which is ironic given its proximity to China as well as the proliferation of low-cost devices in the country.
Fone Arena had a sit down with Carl Pei, the global director for OnePlus, and was able to hold a pretty exhaustive interview with someone of authority in the company to nail down some specifics we’ve been looking for for a while. Sitting in Bangalore with much of the team at hand, Pei spoke about the past and future of OnePlus and how they’ve gotten to the point they’re at. Starting with only 3 employees last December, OnePlus has quickly grown into a considerably larger company when compared to the earlier staffing size, and they continue to grow as demand for their first phone has outpaced their ability to keep up with manufacturing. Pei goes on to talk about their upcoming presence in India, one that wasn’t originally planned by the team but an idea that they’ve done a total 180 on since the demand from Indian customers has been so high. At this point OnePlus is looking to launch in India before December, so just a little over 2 months down the road, and is perfectly slated after they’re planning on ditching the invite system for a pre-order system a la Xiaomi and a number of other highly successful Chinese manufacturers.
Right now Pei is anticipating the price for the OnePlus to come under INR 25,000, which when converted is only a little bit more expensive than the current sale price for the phone. OnePlus is currently planning on launching the global variant of the phone in India, which is the model that comes with CyanogenMod pre-installed instead of the Chinese ColorOS variant. This is likely to sit very well with Indian customers since it gives them the latest version of Android with many custom features built just for the OnePlus One. With the right price and a good amount of supply, we see OnePlus hitting it big in India, but what are your thoughts? Check out Fone Arena’s interview below, as there’s tons of info in it that’s well worth reading.