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OnePlus has a new home coming up—its largest market, and soon, its second headquarters, in India. Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India, speaks to BlackBook about how the smartphone giant aims to offer special, exclusive features to their growing community of Indian fans

- Pankti Mehta Kadakia

Days after a grandstand stadium launch in Mumbai, the OnePlus 6, Chinese smartphone brand OnePlus’ latest flagship, went on sale for ‘Early Access’ members in India on May 21, via Amazon. In the first 10 minutes, the company generated a record ₹100 crore worth of revenue. Here’s another stat: 2,000 tickets for the phone’s launch event sold out in four minutes. A similar ticket sale in the UK for the launch took 10 hours to sell out.

When you paint by numbers, the picture is clear: Indian users take OnePlus very seriously; and now, the reverse is true too.

Earlier this month, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei shared plans of setting up a new headquarters for the company in India’s Bengaluru. In 2017, India accounted for a third of the brand’s $1.4 billion global revenue—the largest share, followed by China, Europe and the US.

In the online Indian premium smartphone (>₹30,000) segment, OnePlus captured 48 per cent market share, as per IDC’s Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker Q4 2017.

“India is now our most important market,” Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, OnePlus India, told BlackBook. “We want it to function more independently. We’re going to set up a full corporate structure here, including HR, admin, sales and marketing; each team localised completely to the Indian nature.”

‘Localisation’ is a big buzzword here. OnePlus will set up a strong R&D department in India, to refine and add features that customise the user experience, especially for Indians.