OnePlus released its official recap of 2017 earlier this week, confirming record turnover and significant growth across a variety of other segments. The $1.4 billion revenue that Chief Executive Officer Pete Lau boasted about earlier this month is one of the highlights of the report, as are the company’s global smartphone sales that grew 55 percent on an annual basis. The Chinese original equipment manufacturer also touted its social media reach, saying that it now has more than 11 million online fans in total, with its posts being seen over 2.3 billion times over the course of the last year.
The company’s operations also grew in terms of employees, with OnePlus now reporting a headcount that’s 776 people strong, with its workforce being physically present in 18 countries. A significant number of those employees work in customer support which resolved more than 10.5 million cases in 2017, whereas the OEM’s official forums recorded a 219 percent growth in user acquisitions, i.e. registrations. According to the firm’s estimates, its smartphones were used by 1,325,057 people as of December 31st, with approximately 111,000 of them participating in its Open Beta programs. OnePlus-made devices and accessories are presently officially sold in 32 countries and are likely to reach new markets in the coming months, with the company’s ambitions still being on the rise. The OnePlus 5 released last May was the fastest-selling smartphone in the history of the Chinese firm, with that title soon being taken from it by the OnePlus 5T launched half a year later. The growth trend is likely to continue going forward, some industry watchers believe, pointing to OnePlus’s product strategy of delivering high-end devices with aggressive price tags as the right approach in many developing markets such as India.
The phone maker has been expanding its reaches ever since it was established in late 2013 but is now starting to experience a higher level of public scrutiny as its smartphones are becoming more popular. The company created some controversy related to its decision to install display modules of the OnePlus 5 upside-down, with the same smartphone also being affected by a Snapdragon-related issue that caused it to reboot when users tried dialing 911. The firm also went back on its promise of delivering Android 7.0 Nougat for the OnePlus 2 and has most recently been affected by a security breach that compromised sensitive credit card information of up to 40,000 of its customers, with some cybersecurity experts claiming the attack could have been prevented if more advanced protections were in place. None of those incidents significantly affected the commercial performance of OnePlus’s 2017 products and their direct follow-ups are also expected to see notable success this year.