CEO Explains How the High-End OnePlus One Is Priced So Low

After all the craze and popularity gained by the '2014 flagship killer' smartphone, the OnePlus One, the company has offered reasons about how the smartphone is cheaper than the current flagships, despite having some of top-notch specifications.

Peter Lau, CEO of OnePlus, and a former vice-president of Chinese phone manufacturer Oppo, states that the key to such a low price of $299 (unlocked and without contract) for the 16GB model (roughly Rs. 18,300) and $349 (roughly Rs. 21,350) for 64GB variant for the smartphone, is a proper redistribution of costs that could benefit the users.

He adds that instead of partnering with retailers and physically marketing the smartphone like the leading giants such as Samsung, HTC or Nokia, OnePlus is focussing more towards online marketing and service.

"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," stated Lau to Techradar in an interview.

"This hasn't really been done before, and we are comfortable not making money on our devices for the first two years to build the brand and gain people's trust that a great and reasonably priced product can be bought online," he added. Lau also said that even before reaching for pre-orders, OnePlus One is already sitting on 140,000 sign-ups by users.

It is being speculated however that online selling could quickly drop the craze for OnePlus One smartphone as it has no marketing push to keep it in front of the public eye.

In the company's latest Q2 production update it was announced that a larger batch of 64GB OnePlus One Sandstone Black units now will be available first, ahead of the 16GB Silk White variant, from late-May to early-June. Also according to the update plan, general availability of the smartphone will be increased and invites will be easily given later in June.

Earlier this month, OnePlus had announced the first update to its release plans for the One handset, saying it has given it increased general availability in June, following the roll-out to invited customers of the 16GB Silk White smartphones in mid-May, and a 'larger batch' of 64GB Sandstone Black in early-June.

Some of the key specifications of the smartphone are CyanogenMod 11S based on Android 4.4 KitKat OS; 5.5-inch full-HD IPS LCD display; quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC clocked at 2.5GHz; 3GB of RAM; 13-megapixel rear IMX214 sensor, and 5-megapixel front-facing camera. Connectivity options include 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC functionality. It features a 3100mAh non-removable battery.