Chinese phone maker OnePlus believes it can build a global brand out of Shenzhen by turning customers into brand advocates, founder Pete Lau has told WIRED. The company's widely acclaimed OnePlus 2, which launched this week to queues around the world, is a phone "created with our customers", Lau said -- and that's why it's already been pre-reserved by 1.6 million people. "We didn't expect the scale of interest with so many people waiting for the OnePlus 2 launch this week," Lau, also the CEO, said. Long queues, typically all-nighters, accompanied pop-up launch events from San Francisco to Bangalore last Monday. In London, queues were reported for 20 hours. "It was, 'Oh my god,' quite a big surprise for us as well. It just happened," Lau said.
The phone, due on sale in the UK from 11 August, is a high-end modified-Android device. At £239/$329 for a 16GB version and £289/$389 for 64GB, it undercuts comparable-spec products in Europe and the US. It follows the company’s first phone, the OnePlus One, which sold a million units between April and December 2014. But what makes OnePlus unusual is its mission to make customers central to everything from product marketing to product design. "We listened to our customers of the OnePlus One -- and there were questions about the camera, the sensibility of the sensors, aspects of the camera software, so we reviewed that," Lau said. "So many customers liked our bamboo case, but found it really hard to change the bottom case. So for the OnePlus 2 we made a modification to make it easier to change the case. What's most important to us is our customers -- it's customers' comments, and listening to them, making the phone easier to use and improving ourselves through customer interaction."
Improving its devices based on customer feedback is central to the way OnePlus -- motto: "Never Settle" -- operates. "We make a good product with our users and we get a very strong contribution from them. This is the cornerstone of OnePlus. We've told our staff that we want our users to be part of this company, to grow with us as a company, to share experiences with us. It's not 'my' brand -- it's 'our' brand. They're more than customers -- we're growing up together. We create together."
The company's stunningly successful marketing strategy relies on customers sharing invitations with friends to reserve a phone -- the only official way they can buy it. Lau, speaking to WIRED through a translator at the RISE conference in Hong Kong on Saturday, said this system had plenty of advantages. "The reason we created an invite-only system is because we want to control the risks the best we can, to control production, quality, quantity. It's not like normal marketing -- if you have a good product, you'll want to introduce it to a friend. So the OnePlus 2 is like a product based on friends saying, 'Come on, that's good, go buy it.' This approach throws tradition away."
Lau believes he can build a global brand from Shenzhen, the Chinese region where the company is based and manufactures its devices. "From the very beginning we wanted to build OnePlus as an international brand," he said. "That's in our DNA. We didn't want to be a pure Chinese company. You shouldn't be labelled by a country -- a good company like Apple shouldn't be labelled as the US. We have employees from more than 19 countries in Shenzhen, from different backgrounds. We have an open culture. We speak English and Chinese in the office." He added with a laugh: "Because I can't speak good English."
But how will he compete with so many other devices targeting the same quality end of the market? "A good product can speak," he said. "In China, if you ask people which phone they would like to buy, most people would say Apple as their first choice. And if you ask, how about the second choice?, they'd say - um, er.... confused. It means there isn't a good Android phone."
He believes the combination of hardware and software will give OnePlus the edge. "For us the most important thing is how to improve the user's experience," he said. "We changed the standard of the screen, the browser, the display -- our standards define a good screen in a different way to any other company. Our concept is to make products based on asking 'why?' -- why does it exist? Why doesn't it change? It's all about the details. Why do you think the iPhone is great? You have no answer except it just makes me comfortable."
The company also differentiates in its bespoke software, called OxygenOS, a version of the Android operating system. Chinese users get a modified version called Hydrogen OS. "As you can see, Hydrogen is very different from any other [operating system]," he said. "We don't have dots, we can detect colour depending on the wallpaper, as you change the wallpaper -- we make it simple and clean. And we have another OS, Oxygen, for the global maker, as we respect different pockets."
Is OnePlus working on other products such as tablets or smart watches? "Not for now," he said. "We're not interested in a tablet -- if your phone goes bigger, why do you need a tablet?" Something to compete with the Apple Watch? "Not interested. It's not something we need. Just something we fancy."
WIRED asked how Lau believes the handset will evolve over the next five years. "We don't think it will change a lot in five years," he said. "If there is a revolution in the battery, the form of the phone will change. What's most difficult now is the battery."
What, finally, does he believe WIRED readers need to know about the OnePlus 2? "You can't find a phone better than this," he said, smiling. "That's true."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
