India is considered to be a tough marketplace for smartphones. 2018 was a tough year for the smartphone industry, ask the ever-dominant Apple. Even iPhones had a lot of bumps on the road in 2018. However, OnePlus, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer found its way throughthe crowd and rose to the occasion and made 2018 theirs.
OnePlus went ahead to triple it’s revenue in the Indian market in the Fiscal year 2018, with their revenues shooting up to Rs. 150 crores as compared to Rs. 37.9 crores in 2016-2017.
OnePlus’ net profit also to a threefold jump to Rs. 2.8 crores from Rs. 90 lakhs as compared to the previous fiscal year, according to the RoC documents. Last year, about one-third of the company’s revenue, i.e., $1.4 billion, came from the second largest smartphone market in the world.
Ever since they made an entry into the Indian market, 4 years ago, they’ve been spreading their roots deep and growing rapidly. The premium smartphone maker primarily targets millennials and launches not more than one smartphone every year and a majority of their sales take place online through Amazon, whereas the offline sales happen through Croma & Reliance Digital stores.
Recently, they took over Samsung & Apple to become the leading brand in the Rs. 30 thousand + premium smartphone market and have captured about 40% of the market, according to counterpoint research.
Having set up their second global headquarters, the Oppo-owned smartphone maker has also been said to have plans to launch a range of smart TVs in partnership with Amazon in India. This will only make the brand’s foothold stronger in the country. Another Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, has already launched a series of smart TVs in the county.
In comparison, other smartphone companies performed at an average. Apple’s sales struggled their way to Rs. 13,097 crores & sold less than a million phones in the first half of 2018. Samsung India, with multiple smartphones, touched Rs. 37,349 crores.
However, in the broader market, OnePlus is yet to make an impact as it is not yet in the top 5 with Samsung, Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi & Huawei.
It is said that in the next three years, India will have approximately 500 million smartphone users and that the smartphone shipment in India is estimated to go up in the year 2019. How well this year works out for the smartphone industry is yet to be discovered.
