OnePlus is starting to show progress of its operations in India. The latest bit, although a bit disappointing for Indian fans, is that the OnePlus One will be sold on an invite-only basis in India, at least during the initial period. The good news is that these invites will be India-specific, which means they’ll have nothing to do with the original ‘international’ invites that people (in the launch countries) needed to purchase the OnePlus One.
Quoting Carl Pei of OnePlus, “As with our current launch countries, Indian users will be able to purchase the One with an India specific invite. Invites have been immensely helpful for us thus far in our current launch countries. They allow us to control our inventory, scale our team and support services to grow along with demand and create an overall better experience for those users with the One. As this is our first experience with the Indian market, we didn’t want to be too ambitious. We are more concerned with offering outstanding service and experiences for users than getting the One in as many hands as possible. It will take us some time to learn and the invites are a great way for us to do that.”
OnePlus seems to have realized the potential in the Indian market, and the fact that things operate quite a bit differently in India compared to other countries. In the exclusive interview we had with Pei, he mentioned that OnePlus will have service centers in India. This is another sign of how kicked OnePlus is about being a ‘brand’ name in India.
Pei also points out that ‘the invite system may not stay in place forever‘. This suggests that the invite-only scheme in the beginning is more of a litmus test, and that OnePlus does have the ability to scale up production and supply given that there’s enough demand.
READ: OnePlus One Review
Xiaomi have been pretty successful in the country, at least as far as sales are concerned. There have been problems with service, but things seem to be improving as time passes. We hope to see OnePlus do a better job, because, as Pei mentions, the company is looking to offer better service and an overall experience than just providing a phone.
The invite system is absolute bullshit. They can say whatever they want, but all sounds like typical sales managers story. As if all service is made just to make “experience for user”. Fuck that. If i know the device is released and i cannot buy it “here and now” than automatically this kind of service is just a piece of crap. And don’t you try to convince me i am wrong. I want to buy 2 opos and i spent 2 weeks playing a polite guy on the opo forum. Then they stop invite system and make me wait 2 more weeks until pre-order launch. And how can i be sure that during pre-launch all goes well and i will be able to place my order? And how long will i have to wait? Hrrr… Opo drives me crazy, i was already 90% for buying meizu, but looked at 3d benchmarks and decided that opo is better device for the next 24 months. So i have to play by the rules they make me play… Honestly, i hate the system opo have created.simply hate it.
I’m sorry about your experience. I’m not trying to defend OnePlus (or trying to offend you for that matter), but there are certain trade-offs the company has made to make the phone more affordable. As they say, you can’t have the cake and eat it too; the OnePlus One is for patient geeks, is my understanding. I hope you get your phones soon.
Funny! You must be a newbie as I’ve got invites much more than I can use! I give away quite a few already. If you have to “play the game” of being a polite person then you probably is not a polite person at all! Just saying! But if you really want to buy, invites for sale are a plenty and they are not expensive at all, some are less than 10 bucks. Common, you spend much more than that for booze in a bar. From what I see, right now everyone who want a one can get one easily. Those who whine are just whining for the sake of it.