India is one emerging market that many up and coming smartphone companies are focusing on. We have seen Xiaomi and OnePlus pay particularly close attention to this market but unfortunately the former was recently hit with a ban in India, it had to stop sales until a court reversed that decision. The country then placed a similar ban on OnePlus forcing the nascent smartphone maker to stop sales but that ban too has now been set aside.
The complaint which led to the ban was moved by Micromax, an India-based rival, and the issue revolved around the Cyanogen OS. Micromax has an exclusive distribution deal with Cyanogen for its Yu smartphone series while OnePlus ships with Cyanogen OS pre-installed in all markets outside of China.
For the time being the ban has been lifted and OnePlus can start selling the OnePlus One in India again though the possibility of another ban isn’t completely off the cards. This case will be taken up again on January 7th, 2015 and both companies have to file documents and written statements based on which a final decision will be made.
Carl Pei, the founder of OnePlus, has already said that the company only found out about this deal between Micromax and Cyanogen a couple of days before its device launched in the country, so the team is working on a custom Android skin which will be used on all devices that are sold in India.