Step Up

OnePlus has gone from cult, invite-only brand to one of the world’s fastest-selling smartphone manufacturers. Co-founder and CEO Pete Lau tells us about the view from the top.

- Abhishek Mandebhot

Pete Lau strolls into the plaza of an upscale Mumbai mall and looks at the neon-lit shopfronts hugging the large open space. He doesn’t speak much, letting his half dozen colleagues feed him information about the property, its availability and the complex real estate laws in the city.

Lau, the CEO of OnePlus, the smartphone brand that’s swiftly built a solid reputation for great phones at a fraction of the price of Great Phones, is looking for a place where he can launch his next OnePlus Experience Store. It’s a pivot for the company, which began with an invite-only programme, before moving on to selling exclusively online. In the last year, though, it’s begun making its presence felt with brick-and-mortar stores, the first of which opened in Bengaluru.

Lau has already seen a few properties today, and has a couple more such visits lined up tomorrow. A few days later, he’ll unveil the shiny new OnePlus 6 at the shiny NSCI Dome in Mumbai. But at this very moment, Lau has come to a halt in the centre of the courtyard, and is surveying the landscape, like a general getting the lay of the land before battle.

There are over a hundred mobile phone brands available in India. Many are unheard of, but they contribute to making India the third-largest smartphone market in the world: Smartphone shipments crossed 124 million units in 2017 alone, making India the world’s fastest-growing major smartphone market. This comes at a time when China, the world’s largest smartphone market, has seen a decline in sales, while North America’s figures have plateaued. If OnePlus hopes to sit at the top of the food chain, it would require a place in which its users can congregate and interact. A shrine, if you may, where OnePlus followers customers can queue up and camp out at before the launch of a new phone.