OnePlus pulls every trick to build its brand footprint in premium segment

Few would have bet on a Chinese handset brand racing up the charts in the premium category in India even a year ago. And yet in the latest Q4 numbers for 2017 OnePlus, the brand owned by BBK the firm that too owns Oppo and Vivo, has gone past Samsung with 24.2 per cent share of the market according to research firm IDC. And standalone monthly figures for January 2018 from Counterpoint Research show that it notched up a share of 27 per cent (in volumes) as against 44 per cent by Apple at number one and 22 per cent by Samsung at number three.

 
How did OnePlus work around common customer perceptions and market rhetoric over Chinese brands to work its way up the ladder?
 
Vikas Agarwal, general manager, OnePlus India said, “It is all about product, service, communication and community-based selling.”
 

Catch-all communication
 
Instead of using one ambassador across the Indian market, OnePlus lined up a battery of influencers that would appeal to divergent demographic groups across different geographies. Doing so helped break down the brand’s values differently for different sets of customers; while Amitabh Bachchan’s endorsement worked for a certain category of consumers in urban and rural markets, comedian Vir Das helped get through to the urban young.

Most recently, the brand roped in Internet sensation Priya Varrier (the girl whose wink in a song from her forthcoming Malayalam movie Oru Adar Love went viral) as an influencer on Instagram where she has 5.1 million followers. OnePlus claims it is among the most engaging brands on Instagram, with almost 8.5 per cent blended engagement rate.
 
The company has always relied more on digital marketing, since its initial days when it was purely an online brand and sold exclusively through Amazon. Today it has a growing offline presence, but the mode of communication is still largely digital with strategic offline alliances. “We believe in word of mouth branding and community based reference sales have worked well in the past. Besides it also helped us address inventory issues, which in turn helped save cost,” said Agarwal. He is referring to the time when OnePlus was sold on an invitation-only basis. At the time, the brand generated a buzz around its sale days by keeping its product specifications, sale timings and other such details a secret.

 
He also believes that the brand communication must be user-focused rather than endorser-led and thus he said, “They (celebrities) share their experiences as users, not as brand ambassadors.”
 
Going offline to win trust
 
OnePlus shipped 287,000 units in Q4 2017 in the premium smartphone segment and it has maintained its number two position with a steady market share of over 24 per cent. The company credits its newly established offline presence for its growth.
 
Offline stores help consumers touch, feel and experience the brand. This builds trust in the label and influences purchase. For instance in Bengaluru where the first experience centre was set up last year, the brand has sold more than in any other city.

 
“Many users are still not online for multiple reasons, they may not trust an online brand or they may not trust OnePlus as it not available offline,” he said. Setting up offline stores helped build trust and the company is now going in for two retail formats-—one a larger store, which will be managed by OnePlus in 5 to 6 cities and another smaller format authorised stores in 10 to 15 cities. The company has also tied up with Tata-owned Croma chain of electronic stores to sell its products.
 
Agarwal said that in 2018, the brand will expand its offline footprint in top eight cities in three ways. “We are looking for locations for experience stores in Delhi and Mumbai. It currently operates one such outlet in Mumbai which was launched in January 2018,” he said. The Croma alliance is also helping spread the label,

 
OnePlus is now available in 20 outlets of Croma but the company says it will be available in over 100 outlets of the chain by the end of this year in key cities.
 
Community focused branding
 
According to Agarwal, the brand has always had its ear to the ground. It customises its products and communication to suit customer’s needs, starting from OnePlus 1 to the most recent limited edition that was inspired by StarWars and made only for the Indian market. As a result, India has become the largest market for OnePlus, having accounted for over 35 per cent of its global sales of $1.4-billion in 2017.

 
According to IDC the overall premium segment, which is handsets of ~30,000 and above, is around four per cent of the total mobile phones market. But it grew by 30 per cent as against overall industry’s growth of 14 per cent in 2017 and the company is focused on building its brand equity in this category.
 
“If you look at the competition, it is very easy to get tempted to do some of those things. You talk of revenue figures, number of product launches they do, number of stores they open, new channels, marketing campaigns - we don’t do any of those things,” said Agarwal, noting that OnePlus built the business in India with a team of just over 50 people, unlike other brands which have at least 500. Staying lean has helped the brand stay nimble on its feet and adapt to varied customer tastes and preferences in the country, he believes.