Steven Millward · · 2 min readOnePlus One arrives in India, ready to battle Xiaomi and Micromax
China’s OnePlus launched in India today, pricing the 64GB version of the OnePlus One phone at INR 21,999, which is US$355. It runs CyanogenMod’s version of Android 4.4. It’s available exclusively on Amazon India.
OnePlus’ entry into India comes five months after Xiaomi first ventured into the country.
The launch of the OnePlus One looked in peril late last week when it emerged – much to the apparent surprise of OnePlus itself – that CyanogenMod has an exclusive partnership in India with homegrown phone maker Micromax. That means the OnePlus One will not get any CyanogenMod OS updates in India. In response, OnePlus is accelerating its work on an in-house Android skin that will be available next year.
“Our community [Android] build will be available in December for users in India who would like to try it. A more final build will become available in February according to our current estimations,” explained OnePlus representative Bridget Hickey to Tech in Asia.
At today’s launch event in New Delhi, executives from both Amazon India and OnePlus took to the stage (pictured above). Vikas Agarwal, OnePlus’ new general manager for India, promised the Chinese company “will establish the first OnePlus presence outside of headquarters and build a fully localized team to best serve and reach the Indian community.” Although sales are only happening online for the moment, OnePlus has set up 25 walk-in service centres across the country.
See our OnePlus One review here.
See: 15 new Asian smartphone makers hoping to crush Samsung and Apple
Editing by Josh Horwitz; bottom photo courtesy of OnePlus
(And yes, we’re serious about ethics and transparency. More information here.)
Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.
Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.
