OnePlus, at the moment, are well into their launch preparations for the OnePlus 2. The event is scheduled to take place on the 27th of July and will be held in virtual reality. Over the last few weeks, the company has been releasing a ton of spec information with the latest snippet coming in yesterday and confirming the inclusion of a 3,300 mAh battery. Well, as part of the launch preparation cycle, OnePlus CEO, Carl Pei, has been doing the interview rounds and recently took part in a Skype Call with The Guardian (source link below).
During the interview, Pei makes some interesting revelations. First off and the headline-grabbing one is that the company is aiming for 100 million users as their safety net number. Of course, that will not all happen next year with the OnePlus 2 and as such, the predictions going forward include selling 2.5-3 million devices by the end of this year. This will be followed by a prediction of 5-7 million in 2016 and finally, another 10 million in 2017. So even by the end of 2017, by their own measurements they will still be well-off the 100 million total. However, that seems to be the goal number to which the company believe they can achieve and will take them to the next level. Pei also goes on to explain that the use of third-party retailers (Best Buy name-dropped) will continue to be off the cards as they look to keep the overheads low. According to Pei, using the retailers will add a further 20% on to the margin which they believe is not a viable option.
Speaking of the next level, interestingly, when talking about the future (and dropping in a mention of the OnePlus 4 and OnePlus 5), Pei talks on the vision being to obtain users and keep them. Even going as far as to say, that when a customer changes to a new OnePlus device, all their information will be available and pre-loaded on to the device. Including biometric details. Therefore, when a user opens their OnePlus 4 or OnePlus 5, the phone is ready to go, specifically for them “So next time, with the OnePlus 4 or 5 a few years down the line, when they receive the phone it’s already logged in and already has everything set up according to their preferences, already has their biometric information.” Not to mention, Pei also hints at the use of “OnePlus credits”. Which could be used to pay for services online. Uber trips being the example used in the interview “Let’s say in the future we have a platform of 10 million users, and we have OnePlus credits, and you take an Uber, you open the Uber app, you log in with your OnePlus account and you’re logged in.” Those Interested in reading in more detail can do so by hitting the source link below.