Made in China OnePlus, now set to Make in India

Chinese technology startup giant OnePlus on Monday announced its plans for local production of its smartphones in India, through contract manufacturing, at Foxconn’s Rising Stars factory within the Sri City Integrated Business City in Andhra Pradesh, by the end of this year.

OnePlus, which is synonymous with its mid- to premium segment smartphones — OnePlus One and OnePlus Two — views India as one of its large markets globally, accounting for around a fourth of its sales. The company began operations around 10 months ago in India, and since then its OnePlus One handset has seen around 250,000 unit sales.

“The Indian market is important for us. Today, we sell our products in 36 countries, and India holds a sizeable share of our business. The country is not only a key market, but has also emerged a manufacturing hub for our products. We are committed to a long-term sustainable growth path here,” OnePlus Founder and Chief Executuve Officer Pete Lau said.

Utilising a unique online sales strategy, OnePlus has been selling its phones on eCommerce platform Amazon, via an invitation system, where customers must first seek an invite, with which they can grab hold of a piece on the day of the sale. Meanwhile, the company expects the demand for its products to steadily grow in India, and has found it opportune to embark on manufacturing here. Stating that the company’s India-produced handsets are for the India market itself, OnePlus General Manager (India) Vikas Agarwal said, “The plan is part of our ‘Make in India’ push. Local production will not only make our operations more efficient in terms of cost and working capital requirements, but will also help us make our products available for sale much faster.”

While the handset models due for production at the India facility are not disclosed, the latter will be producing up to 500,000 units a month, thus scalable to locally fulfill the demand for OnePlus’ devices in India in the future. Also, over 1,000 people are expected to be employed there.