The Chinese market is no joke. Ask Apple where they saw sales in country overtake those in Europe, which is why it does not come as a surprise to learn that Cyanogen is planning on working with more Chinese vendors in the future to help get their platform out there. Previously we had seen the company partner up with the likes of Oppo and OnePlus, and recently they have branched into India with the Yu Yureka.
Speaking at the Global Mobile Internet Conference, Cyanogen’s CEO Kirt McMaster believes that by partnering with Chinese phone vendors, they will be helping these vendors build an identity for themselves outside the country which is true. For the most part, most Chinese companies are relatively unknown outside of their country or the Asian region.
When speaking about companies like OnePlus, it seems like there is no love lost between the two. According to McMaster, “Without Cyanogen, OnePlus would have sold like one device in international markets. Essentially they built their brand on the back of Cyanogen.” He later adds, “OnePlus shipped reasonable volume, but nothing compared to what some of these other partners can ship. So we are working with partners that can scale much quicker.”
Steve Kondik, the company’s CTO on the other hand was a bit more diplomatic. According to Kondik, “That’s probably the last you will see from that partnership unfortunately. Two new companies are trying to do crazy stuff, a lot of people collide.” It is unclear as to which other companies Cyanogen will be partnering with, but we’ll keep an eye out it.