OnePlus

OnePlus
一加科技
Private
Industry Mobile Phones
Founded December 16, 2013 (2013-12-16)
Founder Pete Lau, Carl Pei
Headquarters Shenzhen, Guangdong, China[1][2]
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Pete Lau (Chief Executive Officer)
Products OnePlus One (2014)
OnePlus 2 (2015)
OnePlus X (2015)
OnePlus Icons
OnePlus Powerbank
OxygenOS
Revenue Increase US$300 million (2014)
Parent Oppo Electronics (smartphone subsidiary of BBK Electronics)
Slogan Never Settle
Website OnePlus Global
OnePlus China
OnePlus
Chinese 一加科技（深圳）科技有限公司
Literal meaning OnePlus (Shenzhen) Technology Co., Ltd.

OnePlus (Chinese: 一加科技; pinyin: Yījiā Kējì) is a Chinese smartphone manufacturer founded in December 2013. It is headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong. Apart from mainland China, the company serves 42 countries and regions around the world as of March 2016.

History

OnePlus was founded on 16 December 2013 by former Oppo vice president Pete Lau (刘作虎) and Carl Pei.[3] According to the Chinese government's documentation, the only institutional stockholder in OnePlus is Oppo.[4] Although Lau initially denied that OnePlus was a wholly owned subsidiary of Oppo, upon release of the regulatory filings they admitted that they are owned by Oppo and are "in talks with other investors" (although nothing has been announced to date).[5] The company's main goal was to design a smartphone that would balance high-end quality with a lower price than other phones in its class, believing that users would "never settle" for the lower-quality devices produced by other companies. Lau explained that "we will never be different just for the sake of being different. Everything done has to improve the actual user experience in day-to-day use."[6][7] He also showed aspirations of being the "Muji of the tech industry", emphasizing its focus on high-quality products with simplistic, user-friendly designs.[6] Continuing Lau's association with the platform from the Oppo N1,[7] OnePlus entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with Cyanogen Inc. to base its products' Android distribution upon a variant of the popular custom ROM CyanogenMod and use its trademarks outside of China.[8][9]

The company unveiled its first device, the OnePlus One, on 23 April 2014.[6] In December 2014, alongside the release of the OnePlus One in India exclusively through Amazon, OnePlus also announced plans to establish a presence in the country, with plans to open 25 official walk-in service centres across India.[10] Sales of the device in India were halted following a temporary injunction granted to Micromax Mobile, alleging that it violated its exclusive rights to distribute Cyanogen-branded products in South Asia as part of a new joint venture and that its agreement superseded the agreement it had established with OnePlus. The company disputed the arguments, noting that its Cyanogen-based software was different than that of Micromax's, and argued that the exclusivity agreement only meant that Cyanogen could not partner with any other company based in India, and did not inhibit the ability for OnePlus to market its products in the country with its trademarks.[8][11] OnePlus developed a new ROM named Oxygen OS, similar to CyanogenMod but developed by OnePlus. The new shipments of OnePlus One also removed the Cyanogen Logo from its back and box in order to simplify production lines.

OnePlus disembarked in Southeast Asia for the first time, partnering with Lazada Indonesia[12] on 23 January 2015 and is expected to expand during this year throughout the region.

In April 2014, OnePlus hired Han Han as the product ambassador in mainland China.[13]

On 9 March 2014 the company decided to expand its operations to all European countries except Switzerland, serving now 43 countries and regions all over the world. As of March 2016, OnePlus serves for the following countries and regions: Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Mainland China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kuwait, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, Oman, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Controversies

"Smash the Past" campaign

On 25 April 2014, OnePlus began its "Smash the Past" campaign.[14] The promotion asked selected participants to destroy their phones on video in an effort to purchase the OnePlus One for $1 (US). Due to confusion, several videos were published by unselected users misinterpreting the promotion and destroying their phones before the promotion start date.[15]

The campaign was heavily criticized for environmental waste and safety concerns, due to batteries and phone components posing potential hazards to participants destroying their phones.[16] OnePlus allowed the winners to donate the old phone.[17] There were 140,000 entrants in the contest with 100 winners.[18]

Ladies First

On 13 August 2014, OnePlus hosted a contest to give invites, which were hard to come by at the time, to their women forum members. Users were asked to post a photo of themselves with the OnePlus logo, photos would be shared in the forum and could be ´liked´ by other forum members.[19] Hours after being announced, the campaign was stopped because of the sexist implications in the election process, in which women would have been ranked higher if they had been willing to present themselves more sexy than others. OnePlus stated that a few 'rogue' employees created the campaign.

Ban In India

On 16 December 2014, The Delhi High Court banned the import and sales of OnePlus One phones in India following a lawsuit by Micromax citing the reason that Micromax has exclusivity for shipping phones with CyanogenMod software in India.[20]

As of 21 December 2014, the banning of import and selling of the device in India has been lifted. The device continues to be shipped with the CyanogenMod ROM, however, a customized version of Android specially designed by OnePlus and named OxygenOS has been released.

OnePlus 2 launch invite issue

In advance of the OnePlus 2 launch, OnePlus assured customers that obtaining invites would be easier, and handsets would ship a lot quicker than with the OnePlus One. However, in a public apology, Carl Pei admitted the company had "messed up" the launch, and that OnePlus "only began shipping meaningful quantities [the week of 10 September 2015], nearly a month after [the] initial targeted shipping date."[21][22]

OnePlus customer support

OnePlus customer support has been criticised heavily on various important tech communities in the internet, including Reddit, XDA Developers and OnePlus' own forum. Many customers claim to have had to wait days or even weeks for replies from the support staff once they opened a ticket. Other customers were denied their warranty covered repairs due to water or other usage related damage, when in fact they could prove that there was no such damage before they shipped off their phone for repair.[23][24][25]

OnePlus One unboxing

OnePlus Type-C Cable

After several weeks of customer complaints on OnePlus forums and on Reddit, Google engineer Benson Leung showed that the USB Type-C cable and USB Type-C-to-Micro-USB adapter offered by OnePlus do not conform to the USB specification. OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei on November 26, 2015 admitted that the cable and adapter indeed don't conform to the USB specification, and offered refunds (although not for cables bundled with the OnePlus 2 phone.)[26][27][28] Reports of broken OTG functionality in the OnePlus 2 phones raised in the OnePlus forums remain unanswered.

Devices

OnePlus has manufactured three devices:

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to OnePlus.

References

  1. ↑ Xiang, Tracey. "Chinese Smartphone Startup OnePlus Aims at Developed Markets". TechNode. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  2. ↑ Address - OnePlus 18F Tairan Building C Tairan 8th Road, Chegongmiao, Futian District Shenzhen, Guangdong, China 518040 China
  3. ↑ "OnePlus: setting its sights on changing the world with affordable smartphones". The Guardian. 10 July 2015. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  4. ↑ F., Alan (26 Apr 2014). "Is OnePlus a wholly owned subsidiary of Oppo? Chinese document suggests that the answer is yes". phonearena.com.
  5. ↑ "OnePlus Responds To OPPO Controversy". Gizchina.com. 28 Apr 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 "Meet the One, OnePlus' $299 Nexus killer". Engadget. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  7. 1 2 Kastrenakes, Jacob (16 December 2013). "From Oppo to OnePlus: a new company wants to build the next great smartphone". The Verge. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  8. 1 2 "OnePlus to Delhi High Court: Micromax's Cyanogen OS Is Different". NDTV Gadgets. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  9. ↑ Dent, Steve (7 January 2014). "Cyanogen will partner with OnePlus on its debut phone, the 'OnePlus One'". Engadget. Retrieved 14 February 2014.
  10. ↑ "OnePlus One launched in India for $355 on Amazon". GSMArena. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  11. ↑ "OnePlus One Sales Reportedly Halted By Delhi High Court After Micromax Plea". NDTV. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  12. ↑
  13. ↑ "Oppo unveils Chinese actress Mini Yang M as brand ambassador". GSM INSIDER. Retrieved 17 April 2015.
  14. ↑ "OnePlus Smash Promotion". Retrieved 27 April 2014.
  15. ↑ "OnePlus One ‘Smash the Past" contest sees hopefuls smashing their phones prematurely". Retrieved 27 April 2014.
  16. ↑ "OnePlus One "Smash the Past" is a Pretty Bad Contest". Retrieved 27 April 2014.
  17. ↑ "OnePlus revises their 'smash' contest to allow winners to donate perfectly good phones to charity instead". Android Central. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  18. ↑ http://www.androidcentral.com/oneplus-revises-their-smash-contest-allow-winners-donate-perfectly-good-phones-charity-instead
  19. ↑ "OnePlus asks women to participate in degrading contest to get a smartphone". Verge. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
  20. ↑ "Delhi HC bans import & sales of OnePlus One smartphone in India". AndroidOS.in.
  21. ↑ Pei, Carl (10 September 2015). "Sorry for the delay guys". OnePlus forums. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
  22. ↑ McCann, John (11 September 2015). "OnePlus admits it messed up the OnePlus 2 launch". TechRadar. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
  23. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/oneplus/comments/3ci8y8/has_anyone_gone_through_the_rma_process_not_been/
  24. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/oneplus/comments/3a0q6q/one_plus_rma_experience_false_accusations_and
  25. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/oneplus/comments/39g5cb/what_to_expect_from_a_oneplus_remote_session/cs32cax
  26. ↑ "OnePlus Offers Explanation, Refunds In Type-C ‘Cablegate’". Retrieved 29 November 2015.
  27. ↑ "OnePlus admits that it’s selling dodgy USB Type-C cables and adapters". Retrieved 29 November 2015.
  28. ↑ "In response to the Type-C cable discussions". Retrieved 29 November 2015.

External links

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