OnePlus started as a very focused company looking to deliver the best user experience at the lowest cost possible. Of course, it would have been hurting the profit margins, and it was understandable for the company to keep hiking the prices of its flagships. In less than a decade, OnePlus has become one of the most prominent Android smartphone brands in India. It has been possible because of the strategy the company adopted in its early days.
In 2022, OnePlus is not the company we saw it was a few years back. Right now, OnePlus is working pretty hard to capture market share in every price segment possible. Be it the lower mid-range, mid-range, semi-premium or premium, OnePlus is going with full force everywhere. The company had merged with Oppo and is now aggressively rebranding its smartphones in the country. It isn’t like OnePlus didn’t do it before. However, it was more subtle back then. Now, OnePlus is very aggressively rebranding Oppo as well as Realme smartphones.
OnePlus Smartphones Still Pretty Good
Don’t get me wrong; its smartphones are still pretty good. OnePlus 9RT and the OnePlus 10 Pro are two of the most excellent releases this year. But what happens to the Nord 2T, which launched recently. What happens to the OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite, OnePlus Nord CE 2, OnePlus Nord Buds, and more gadgets that the company launched recently.
Early on, OnePlus came with a model similar to Apple. There were just select premium devices every year, and OnePlus focused on delivering the most to the consumers at a fair price point with these smartphones. However, now, the company seems to be doing what Oppo, Xiaomi, Vivo and other Chinese brands are doing.
OnePlus is going all out on capturing as many consumers as it can. The cost of that is consumers don’t really know what to expect from the company anymore. The OxygenOS 12.1 is fairly good and stable. So, performance is not something I am too worried about with OnePlus. However, what the company will do next is unpredictable.
OnePlus 10R 5G didn’t feel like the flagship it should have been. The build quality is just not there to support the price point. Hopefully, OnePlus can dial things down a little and really just listen to the consumers. There needs to be a focused approach and OnePlus already has millions of loyal fans. While adding new ones would be great for the business, it doesn’t really need to try to get everyone.
