And right now, early adopters and smartphone aficionados are really the limit of OnePlus’ customer base. Though the company has been able to build tremendous amounts of hype and attention through its fan forums, social media accounts, and on technology blogs, the reality is that OnePlus is far from a household name at this point. Selling 1.5 million phones, as OnePlus did for its first phone, is certainly impressive for an upstart company, but it pales in comparison to the number of units Apple and Samsung move each quarter.
I find these numbers jaw-dropping, to be honest. This completely unknown – at the time – company managed to sell 1.5 million of its first phone, and now its second phone has already seen more than one million pre-orders. I don’t know about you, but I find that really, really impressive.
As for the headline question – I find that unlikely at this point, but does it really matter? Does every company need to be either Apple or Samsung to be considered even remotely interesting by American/western technology media?
Any vendor that’s not catering to the mainstream (in other words, gimping phone features in favor of ‘shiny’ like the S6 did) will probably make a phone I am interested in …
You are quoting a Verge “article” right?
That’s your answer.
I started reading the Bits part of NY Times. Better info and less bias too.
The question is, do OnePlus wants, as a company, to become mainstream? Is it their development goal? If so, they will most likely meet a failure, if not, there are plenty of mobile manufacturer happy to be niche players (read: leaders in their niche, often a local market)
Both my kids have Oneplus 1 ones and they rate them highly. They are excellent phones which have not been messed about with too much and are cheep. Obviously these are going to sell.
I’m sure the Oneplus 2 will do equally well or better.
OnePlus is fulfilling the grey box role of the PC era. They know they will never compete with Dell (Samsung) in terms of scale and numbers but can make a tidy profit in spite of this. They don’t own or run any fabs, so when that profit wanes, pack up and move on.
There is no surprise! Oppo is the owner of OnePlus and Oppo starts to shift some of its phone production to OnePlus! Also, the design of Oppo phones and OnePlus phones are pretty similar!
Here is more info:
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Is-OnePlus-a-wholly-owned-subsidiary…
Edited 2015-08-04 08:59 UTC
According to Wikipedia the iPhone 1 sold a total of 6.1 million units. And that was the landslide phone that eventually ended up killing good old Nokia. I’m sure you’ll find equally “unimpressive” sales for the early Android phones.
Most journalists seem to miss the fact that big companies grow from small. Or perhaps it is just a better story to pretend they were always big from the beginning? Also related is the idea that someone gets a bright idea, patents it, and becomes rich over night. The every day worker loves stuff like that.
Apple and iPhone did not kill Nokia. Samsung, Android and Microsoft (thru Elop) have killed Nokia.
Yes, okay a combination many things killed Nokia.
The iPhone 1 was still the starting phone that eventually turned Apple into the most profitable company in the world. This phone marked a turning point in (smart) mobile history.
Indeed iPhone started a revolution.
iPhone 1 was launched in 2007 and Nokia has been increasing its share in smartphone market in years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and beginning of 2011. Actually, Nokia’s smartphone market was increasing faster than Apple’s during those years. Majority of Nokia customers and clients went to Samsung and implicitly to Android.
Anyway, OnePlus (which is Oppo’s second attempt to re-start and re-brand its smartphone bussiness) will not get very far for the simple reason that it does not have international/worldwide presence and support, like for example Huawei and Lenovo have. These two are far ahead and not even Xiaomi can reach them.
Yes it did. If not the iphone itself than the movement it spawned. It raised the bar for what a smart phone should be. Android OEMS took that as a goal to aim for. Nokia, well Nokia like Blackberry and Windows Phone, tried at first improving their existing phones to compete, and then ditched the old platforms for new ones. And they pretty much got killed.
When seeing these small companies produce these flagship-category phones (and in such numbers, too), I always wonder what e.g. Jolla, or the manufacturer of the Firefox phone is doing. Because certainly not a very good job…
OnePlus and Jolla are both “making smart phones”, but they really are doing different things.
OnePlus is assembling a phone out of electronic parts that are similar to those used in countless other phones and selling it with a well established operating system made by a separate and enormous tech company. A quick Internet search says they might have around 400 employees.
Jolla is creating a new mobile operating system (based on the existing Mer, but still new) to sell on a phone they designed and on other electronic devices in the future (since they are no longer making their own hardware). The Wikipedia says they have around 150 employees.
Both companies hope to find a market from their different goals. Actually, their goals are so different that I could imagine OnePlus selling a phone with Jolla’s operating system on it officially (I think it’s already been ported unofficially) and both companies being happy.
I don’t know anyone who would be silly enough to beg for an invitation to buy a commodity phone. Its not better than existing phones, nor is it significantly cheaper. I don’t know why people would buy it.
The stupid late 90’s Apple-esque attempt at creating a reality distortion field, is just sickening. The marketing slogan for it is “2016 flagship killer”. The phone doesn’t even stack up well against 2015 flagships.
Making cheap high end devices is close to impossible for small companies. Big monsters like Samsung and Apple have the benefits of mass production (i.e. the more they order, the less they are charged by different component manufacturers). So competing on price is a pipe dream, however competing on features is very possible.
I’d gladly pay more if I’d get a serious high end device which runs glibc Linux + Wayland natively without any Android clutter.
Edited 2015-08-04 15:43 UTC
They basically need to compete on price and quality. But instead they are marketing it as a “2016 flagship killer”. Its really clear that they should be aiming for the opposite of their slogan “never settle”. Most consumers should settle for phones that are good enough at a lower price.
But their real competition right now is Motorola. The Moto X style and Moto X pure are from a more well known company, have better features, and cost about the same.
I would also love a glibc phone, but there is a limit to how much I would pay. Maybe an extra $200, but no more. I think the real issue as I stated somewhere else in on osnews recently, is that the hardware is too custom for each device. Maybe once arm64 gets standardized for servers, it will creep down to phones. So we can just get an install image for a “Standardized arm 64 phone” and go to town.
I hope more that with Intel advancing their SoCs, situation will improve somewhat, especially since they are making open drivers for most of their components.
In contrast, lost all hope for ARM to become as open as current desktop x86_64 systems are. The time is ripe to push Qualcomm on the mobile to the side.
Edited 2015-08-04 17:03 UTC
I don’t know if it will ever make its way into mobile, but for servers, there is a standard that will allow for installing operating systems similar to x86_64. Where you can install an old OS on a new piece of hardware and new version of software on old hardware and it just works. Its very slowly materializing, but its been in progress for a couple of years.
Not sure why it wouldn’t. Their Atom SoC was gradually improving the power consumption, and should be quite competitive with ARM in their 10nm iteration. But so far it’s delayed (see Morganfield): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_%28system_on_chip%29
Edited 2015-08-04 21:26 UTC
Sorry, my previous reply was lacking one vital piece of info: There is a new standard for ARM 64 servers. But it also looks like intel Atom SOC’s will also support UEFI and ACPI. Cool. Thats the way it should be.
Anyone familiar with Betteridge’s Law of Headlines already knows the answer: no.
1+ will not manufacture phones in advance without an existing order. You order, they manufacture. While Samsung and Apple manufacture millions of devices and stock them in warehouses to be sent to resellers.
There’s a big difference in business model, so comparing 1+ against Apple/Samsung is apple to orange comparison.
Edited 2015-08-05 02:26 UTC