OnePlus is planning to open a brick-and-mortar store in Paris, France, it seems, at least according to the info provided by the source. The company’s co-founder, Carl Pei, was at this year’s IFA in Berlin, and he allegedly hinted that such a store will become a reality in the near future. This does come as a surprise, as OnePlus is selling its product via its website, and did not show interesting in retail until now, but that may change in the near future, as the company is probably looking to grow even more, similar to Xiaomi.
The company did have some presence in retail in France, due to its partnership with Bouygues, a French carrier, but the company never had its own store or anything of the sort. Carl Pei also said that such a store will open before the company makes its next major launch, and that obviously means that it will be open before the OnePlus 6T arrives later this year. The OnePlus 5T was announced back in November, and the 6T is expected to come in November 2018, so the store will open sometime in between now and the OnePlus 6T’s launch day. The company’s retail store will offer more than just smartphones, as the company does have more products under its belt, including backpacks, t-shirts, smartphone accessories, and so on.
On top of speaking about the upcoming retail store, the company’s co-founder also talked about Xiaomi’s Pocophone brand and Poco F1 smartphone a bit. He said that the company (OnePlus) is unfazed by the recent arrival of the Poco F1, while he also added that OnePlus’ biggest enemy is OnePlus, suggesting that the company only competes against itself, while admitting that there’s always room for progress, and that OnePlus can improve on many things. That is pretty much all the info that we have thus far, but it will be interesting to see if the company is planning any more retail stores except the one in Paris, and it quite probably is.