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Having achieved top position in India’s premium smartphone segment through its online presence, OnePlus is now eyeing to strengthen its offline presence in key cities.

At the launch of an authorised store at Ahmedabad, Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India, said, “India contributes about one third of our global revenues of $1.4 billion (2017). India is going to become our second headquarter after Shenzhen, China. 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 large format stores, one each in Chennai and Bengaluru, while the six authorised stores are at Bengaluru, Ahmeadbad, Kolkata, Pune and Mumbai.

‘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 are manufactured in India. We started making in India with OnePlus 6 from June ,” said Agarwal.

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