OnePlus entered India with its OnePlus One smartphone which promised a host of features which were mostly premium at a stellar affordable price. When the iPhones and the Galaxies were building up the super-premium smartphone market, OnePlus also wanted a chunk of that, and slowly and steadily, we have seen the premium phone maker breach the premium market. With the current lineup of the 8-series, it is now all-premium as opposed to all-affordable.
However, OnePlus is working on bringing a shift in is product strategy – building its focus into a new affordable handset segment – a place which OnePlus is familiar with. Analysts have stated that during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, customers have been holding back on making non-compulsory purchases.
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OnePlus planning to increase the user base
In a report by ET Telecom, OnePlus India’s new Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Navnit Nakra explained that the objective behind the new strategy is to ‘share technology with more users.’
He was quoted saying that OnePlus’ is planning to expand its user base which will be born into fruition by expanding to new product lines which are “accessible and diversified”. Also, the company is pushing to provide a premium experience at the same time while diversification across price segments.
The specific price range OnePlus looks poised to attack still yet to be clarified. The ET report quoted IDC India research director Navenkendar Singh explained that the premium and super-premium segments are not large enough to move the brand in terms of sales volumes. However, a new mid-premium price segment in the range of Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 could be a possible growth area for almost all brands which also includes OnePlus.
CMR’s Head-Industry Intelligence Group Prabhu Ram was quoted stating that the pandemic aftermath will witness users holding back on ‘discretionary’ purchases meaning OnePlus will benefit more from following Apple’s strategy and launch affordable devices as Apple did with the iPhone SE 2020.
OnePlus vs Samsung, Apple, Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and so on
Research firm techARC founder Faisal Kawoosa was quoted stating that the smartphone’s Luxe category which is above Rs 50,000 has not grown even after a lot of years and is still at 2 per cent of entire sales.
Seeing this, Kawoosa has stated that this segment holds very limited scope for growth and revenue options and would have impacted OnePlus and its idea of increasing prices by around 15 per cent at every launch – landing it in the Luxe category.
Kawoosa explained to ET that it would be hard for OnePlus to capture more than 30 per cent share in the Rs 30 to Rs 40,000 segment – a segment where OnePlus has already been “Zuì hǎo” – Chinese for “best”.
Other than that, OnePlus is planning to bring a low-cost OnePlus Z smartphone in the Rs 20-Rs 30,000 segment and will have to face other rivals from Vivo, Samsung, and Oppo. Kawoosa also stated that OnePlus would have to match their reach in the offline market in India as well.
source: timesnownews
