While phones coming out of China tend to be cheap, the OnePlus One might be the exception. It’s not cheap, but rather it is affordable, especially at $299 for the 16GB model and $349 for the 64GB model, making them as affordable as Google’s Nexus 5. That being said, we doubt that unlike Google, OnePlus is subsidizing the handsets they are selling, so how is it that they have managed to create such a powerful device while keeping the price tag low?
Speaking in an interview with the folks at TechRadar, OnePlus’ CEO, Peter Lau, has revealed that the reason OnePlus has managed to keep its price low is because they have been selling the phone at cost. It is an interesting move, especially for a new company who might have been better off trying to recoup their losses as quickly as possible. Then again with Oppo as their investor, perhaps funding might not be an issue.
According to Lau, “We are selling the phone at cost. We are able to do that by redistributing our costs to better benefit the user. Rather than put money towards a large marketing budget, we are focusing on online marketing and community interaction. Rather than working with retail partners, we rely on selling the device online.”
Like we said, it’s an interesting and brave move on their part. However with its high-end hardware and the fact that it comes with CyanogenMod preloaded, we can definitely see its appeal to Android owners who wants a powerful device minus the frills that OEMs typically bundle with their devices, but what do you guys think?
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