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Having achieved top position in India’s premium smartphone segment through its online presence, the Chinese smartphone maker, OnePlus is now eyeing to strengthen its offline presence in key cities.
At the launch of an authorised store at Ahmedabad—the first in Gujarat and the sixth in the country—Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India, said, “India contributes about one third of our global revenues of US $ 1.4 billion (2017). This is the largest and fastest growing market for us. India is going to become our second headquarter after Shenzhen, China. After online, we plan to increase our offline presence in India by opening large-format experience stores as well as small format authorised stores across key cities.”
Currently, OnePlus has two operational large format stores, one each in Chennai and Bengaluru, while the six authorised stores are located at Bengaluru, Ahmeadbad, Kolkata, Pune and Mumbai.
According to Agarwal, the focus on offline expansion, will not cannibalise the online sales, the brick-and-mortar store model is mainly for those markets where consumers prefer tangible stores to experience the product before purchase.
‘Huge potential’
OnePlus has already pipped other premium smartphone brands such as Samsung and Apple by cornering about 40 per cent market share in the premium segment in the country.
“India’s premium smartphone market is growing at a faster pace of 20 per cent annually as compared to the industry growth rate of about 14 per cent. As against the West, where premium segment holds 50 per cent share, its share in India is merely 5 per cent. Hence, it provides huge potential for growth," said Agarwal.
With aspirations going up among the young and professional Indian smartphone users, there is likely to be a shift towards premium smartphones. “That is driving the growth for the segment,” he added.
Currently the production of devices is outsourced at a factory in Noida, but OnePlus is planning to set up an R&D Facility with focus on product development. “All components including Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are also manufactured in India. We started making in India with OnePlus 6 model from June onwards,” said Agarwal.
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