| Pub. Date | : November, 2021 |
|---|---|
| Product Name | : The IUP Journal of Marketing Management |
| Product Type | : Article |
| Product Code | : IJMM221121 |
| Author Name | : K S Venu Gopal Rao and Syeda Maseeha Qumer |
| Availability | : YES |
| Subject/Domain | : Marketing |
| Download Format | : PDF Format |
| No. of Pages | : 20 |
The case discusses the success story of Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus in India, the world's second-largest smartphone market. OnePlus came to India in late December 2014 and in just four years emerged as the number one smartphone brand in the Indian premium smartphone segment. With the launch of its first flagship smart TV - the OnePlus TV - exclusively in India in September 2019, the company planned to develop a strong ecosystem of products in order to strengthen its premium-only brand proposition in the country. Despite its phenomenal success in India, OnePlus had several challenges ahead. These included fierce competition, issues relating to scaling offline, price-sensitive Indian consumers, low smartphone penetration, and an economic slowdown. Moreover, as OnePlus phones were getting expensive, the company faced the risk of losing price-conscious customers. As India continued to be a critical market for OnePlus, the challenges before OnePlus India were to increase adoption of OnePlus devices in the country, expand offline, crush competition, and continue to rule the premium Indian smartphone segment.
While over 70% of our business comes from global regions, India has been our biggest success... [T]oday, OnePlus has a 43% share in the premium segment. This is more than the combined share of the next two brands-Apple and Samsung-in India. And this has been just from online presence.i
- Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India, in 2019.
In Q2 2019, China's OnePlus overtook Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd1. (Samsung),the world's largest mobile phone maker, to become the number one smartphone brand in the Indian premium smartphone segment ( 230,000 and above). Driven by strong demand