OnePlus has sold 500,000 phones so far, half of them in China

OnePlus has sold just over 500,000 phones since the new Chinese brand hit the market in 16 countries in May. Carl Pei, OnePlus’ co-founder, revealed the number to Forbes and said that the plan is to sell one million by the end of the year.

Pei explained to Tech in Asia via email that half of those phones sold are in China.

OnePlus makes only one gadget at the moment, the Android-based OnePlus One, which has received largely positive reviews from around the world for being a solid yet powerful phone for just US$300. Our review is here.

While one million would be a solid tally for OnePlus’ first eight months in business, it seems clear that the new brand, which is a spin-off from Oppo, is not seeing the same traction as Xiaomi. The disruptive Xiaomi, which first started making affordable smartphones in late 2011, sold 7.2 million phones in 2012, its first full year in business. Xiaomi plans to sell 60 million this year.

Pei also explained to Forbes that – following the lead of Xiaomi again – OnePlus is looking into making a variety of gadget accessories in order to boost its revenues. “We’ve made a really social brand that people are fans of. If we make lifestyle products or specialized accessories, I think those will do really well,” he added.

The need to make money from other channels is imperative because, as Pei reveals, OnePlus makes a mere “single-figure dollar amount on each phone” that it sells. It’s already running a trimmed-down business that only sells online and has minimal inventory. But that makes it tough to ramp up production. Pei replied to our question about manufacturing constraints by explaining: “Manufacturing capacity has never been the issue, but rather planning. A key component [of the phone] has a three-month order lead time, and due to us not having large margins, we can’t afford to manufacture more than we’re sure to sell.”

See: Lenovo ships record 32.8M smartphones worldwide in past 6 months, but it’s losing ground in China