OnePlus may have had its share of ups and downs this year but you can’t argue that they’ve also had an impressive amount of success with their One handset. Despite lack of advertising or major partners the OnePlus One has sold over 500,000 units but the company has much bigger plans going forward.
In a recent interview with Forbes magazine, OnePlus co-founder, Carl Pei, expanded on his vision of where the company should go next. The One smartphone has been around for the best part of the year but it’s never been widely distributed. In fact the company has relied on social media campaigns, invite systems and very limited pre-orders to spread the word about their device, but all of that seems to have worked.
The recent pre-order window finally pushed the sales numbers over half a million handsets, which is impressive for a company with a “$300 marketing budget”. However, Pei says he’s looking forward to double that number by the end of this year, mainly through expanded availability.
Pei also talked about the future profitability of OnePlus that’s currently seeing razor-thin margins on its handset sales. The co-founder explained that going forward accessories and the ecosystem around the handsets is what’s going to keep the company in business.
OnePlus is working on a second version of their device, dubbed the OnePlus Two, but according to previous reports there’s still a long wait before that handset sees the light of day. In the meantime OnePlus should probably focus on fixing their distribution chain and improving the quality of both their devices and their customer support.
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