Section B Group 5 Product Analysis OnePlusOne

Group 5 Akshat Choudhary (15P065) Deepawal Grover (15P075) Jyothish K Jose (15P085) Neenu Suresh (15P095) Samaksh Chhabra (15P104) Marketing Planning I Tanvin Singh (15P114)

ANALYSIS OF ONEPLUS ONE Analysis of OnePlus One Mobile Phone

Analysis of OnePlus One

Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................... 3 WHY ONEPLUS ONE? .......................................................................................................................... 5 ONEPLUS – AT A GLANCE ................................................................................................................... 5 SWOT ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................................. 6 Strengths......................................................................................................................................... 7 Weakness ........................................................................................................................................ 8 Opportunities ................................................................................................................................. 8 Threats ............................................................................................................................................ 9 Findings from SWOT Analysis: ....................................................................................................... 9 PEST ANALYSIS.................................................................................................................................. 10 Political Factors ............................................................................................................................ 10 Economic Factors.......................................................................................................................... 11 Social Factors ................................................................................................................................ 11 Technological Factors ................................................................................................................... 11 Potter’s 5 Forces Model ................................................................................................................... 13 Application of Potter’s 5 forces model on OnePlus One ................................................................ 14 The Marketing Research Process ..................................................................................................... 17 Problem definition, Decision alternatives and research objectives ........................................... 17 Research Plan Development and Information Gathering ............................................................... 18 Information Analysis .................................................................................................................... 18 Buying roles and decision making process .................................................................................. 19 Purchase Behaviour...................................................................................................................... 20 Gist of Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 22 Positioning strategy for OnePlus One.............................................................................................. 24 Suggestions and Indicative Foresights ......................................................................................... 25 Conclusion ........................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined. REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................... 28

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Analysis of OnePlus One

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ease of carrying out business in India coupled with rise in disposable income of individuals has enhanced the competitiveness of Indian Industry across all sectors. Era of digitalization has not only led to an exponential growth in the demand for various electronic products but at the same time dissolved the market barriers of reaching out to potential customers. The impact of this transition has led to an exponential rise in the demand of various products. This ever increasing demand and the rising competition with global competitors has made Indian business market highly competitive. Innovative strategies are thus devised and adopted to cut down the costs and subsequently reduce the price of products. Traditional marketing and advertising can constitute up to 50% of the cost of the product. Thus, social media channel of marketing has been widely adopted these days to curtail down this marketing price substantially. Additionally, the SEO enabled social media marketing provides direct access to targeted consumers. The social media marketing channel offers a plethora of alternatives to market directly to the targeted consumers at the lowest possible cost. Many companies still utilize both the channels of marketing – offline and online, but with different contributions of both towards realization of sales. A few companies have dared to adopt social media only based marketing channel. Additionally, in terms of the sales channel, e-commerce channels have a lot to offer to provide direct access to customer and significantly cut down the cost associated with involving several players for reaching out to the end consumer. Leveraging these incentives, several brands have been able to provide exclusive offers for enhancing the sales realization through e-commerce channel. In fact, many brands have been able to realize the benefits of this and shift to an e-commerce only mode of sales. An innovative and interesting strategy has been adopted by OnePlus that combines the benefits of social media marketing along with the incentives offered through e-commerce only mode of sales. Additionally it adopted an invite only model that not only provided the much required hype to its first launch but also enabled the company to cut down their marketing expense to negligible figures. In this report, we have conducted the market analysis of the strategy adopted by OnePlus for marketing its product OnePlus One. The analysis encompasses all crucial analyses for assessing the success or failure of the adopted strategy.

3

Analysis of OnePlus One A comprehensive SWOT analysis was the first step towards garnering the information pertinent to the adoption of this strategy. The SWOT analysis clearly highlighted the concern areas where OnePlus needed to be more cautious and also identified the areas where they can further improvise to add to the strengths of the marketing strategy. SWOT analysis was followed by an exhaustive PEST analysis to analyse the impact of Political, Economic, Social and Technology parameters on the adopted strategy. This clearly pointed out towards the environmental impact of various parameters on the success of any marketing strategy. Porter’s 5 Forces Analysis was also conducted to study the impact of external factors on OnePlus One. The analysis of clearly categorised the risk from five most prominent parameters that impact the market strategy of OnePlus One. Further, a primary survey was conducted to capture the responses from consumers & understand the brand perception that had been created. Also, consumer behaviour was analysed based on the responses captured through this exhaustive survey, encompassing over 100 relevant respondents. The market segmentation of OnePlus One was closely analysed and studied towards the end so as to decipher its marketing strategy and assess the compliance of its positioning with company’s planned positioning. The detailed analysis of the marketing strategy of OnePlus One after conducting all the above mentioned analyses came out with interesting results. The gist of the results focuses on need to continuously change the strategy and to come up with new modes of marketing to target untapped markets such as Rural spaces.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

WHY ONEPLUS ONE? OnePlus One, a smartphone launched by a completely new company did amazingly well when it came to marketing of the product. It has earned the title as the new king of midrange smartphones, and the buzz surrounding the product is still growing at an unprecedented rate. It’s the smartphone that’s managed to dominate the market in a very short amount of time, an impressive feat accomplished largely due to a clever marketing plan. What makes the marketing plan of OnePlus One unique is the invite-only system launched by the company. The phone was sold only through the e-commerce channel using Amazon in India. The ‘buy-by-invitation’ system allows the manufacturer to gradually fulfill the demand while customers are kept in a constant state of anticipation. This also adds to the phone’s appeal as a “VIP product” for only a “select” group of people. This has been the driving force in creating the craze behind the phone, as the manufacturers are appealing to basic human nature: we always want what we can’t have. It was quite surprising to see people eager to shell out money for a phone they had never seen. It was this craze in the market that helped the company sell 500,000 mobile phones by spending mere $300 on the marketing of the product. It is clear that OnePlus One has emerged as an epitome of implementing effective marketing strategies that maximizes the sales with the least possible expense.

ONEPLUS – AT A GLANCE OnePlus was started by Pete Lau, former Vice President of Oppo, with an aim to build his dream phone. The company has a tag line ‘NEVER SETTLE’, by which they mean that their customers will never settle for anything less. The first product launched by the company to the market is a smartphone names OnePlus One. The OnePlus One is an Android based smartphone with CynogenMod OS. The One was designed to be a low-cost smartphone comparable in performance and quality to competing devices released at around the same time. The company's main goal was to design a smartphone that would be cheap and still not compromise on the performance as well as the quality; one that would balance the quality of high-end devices from its major

5

Analysis of OnePlus One

competitors with a lower price than other phones in its class. The company's primary costcutting measure was a decision to exclusively sell the device online. The company introduced the concept of buy with invite only. The phone was first made available for sale exclusively from the OnePlus website, but previously required prospective customers to obtain an invitation before they could purchase it. These invitations were primarily distributed by the company through contests, some of which attracted attention for their unconventional in nature. Further the customers would get a couple of invites to share with their friends and family. As per the company they viewed this strategy as a source of sharing your happiness. People would share the invites for others to experience what they have. As of now, the device no longer requires an invite to purchase. Oppo, another Chinese smartphone company, manufactures the phones for OnePlus. This way they company promises a good phone quality and also negates the doubts of product quality being a startup. The company took the smartphone industry by a storm and was an instant hit among the youth who were happy to avail the best features without burdening their pockets.

SWOT ANALYSIS With the above background about the company & the product, it becomes imperative to conduct a SWOT analysis of the product OnPlus One, to understand which strategies favoured them & which didn’t favour them. A brief schematic showing the key findings from SWOT analysis is shown below in Figure 1. The component-wise explanation follows the schematic.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

STRENGTHS:

WEAKNESS :

1. High Configuration

1. Poor Customer Service

2. Low price

2. Lots of bugs and glitches

3. Custom OS

3. Cyanogenmod legal dispute

SWOT Analysis OPPORTUNITIES:

THREATS :

1. Leveraging Upon Satisfied pool of Customers

1. Competition

2. Leveraging Upon the ‘Want’

3. Lack of Exclusivity

3. Diversifying Advertising

4. Distribution

2. Change in Tastes

Figure 1: SWOT Analysis Strengths High Configuration – OnePlus One offers an Outstanding Display, Smooth Performance, Superb Battery Power and Excellent Camera Features, that are not only comparable to other phones in the same category, but in fact better than most of the prominent brands. Some of the prominent features are enlisted below: i.

Quad-core 2.5 GHz processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 chipset with 3GB RAM

ii.

CyanogenMod 11S OS

iii.

3100mAh Battery

iv.

5.5 inch with capacitive display and 401 pixel density

v.

13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera support with LED flash

Low Price – OnePlus One not only provides the one of the best features available in the market but also ensures very low price than renowned Brands like Samsung and Apple. Model name

OnePlus One

Samsung Galaxy Note 4

Apple iphone 5s

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Approximate Price (INR)

18000

42000

37000

Custom Operating System – The distinction that One plus One offers to its customers beyond the pricing, specification & configuration is in terms of a different OS i.e. Cyanogen. The Cyanogen OS offers better localization, faster updates, and also generates user feedback. This leads to seamless integration between hardware, software and cloud computing (futuristic). Weakness Poor Customer Service- OnePlus One has limited number of service centres in India, only 37 as listed on their website. Considering the amount of sales, it becomes tough for these service centres to cater to the demand. Lots of bugs and glitches- With the recent update to Android Lollipop, there have been complaints about several bugs and overheating of the phone. Cynogenmod legal dispute- One plus one currently faces legal issues pertaining to providing cynogenmod in India as Micromax holds the monopoly. Due to this, the updates are not available for the customers. Opportunities Leveraging Upon Satisfied Pool of Customers – The invite model instigates confidence amongst the customers, as they get hands on feedback about the phone & thus, in a way for every new phone bought through an invite, OnePlus One receives one indirect endorsement from the customer providing invite. This has led to a creation of huge pool of loyal customers for OnePlus & this pool can be suitably targeted for any new product launches. Leveraging Upon the ‘Want’ – The invite system has made OnePlus One difficult to grab, which has created a ‘want’ for this product more than need. This fact can be leveraged to encompass more customers by adopting different marketing strategies that release targeted invites to few customers & further grow the sales. Diversifying Advertising – Even though the product has already clocked over a million sales, with approximately $10,000 marketing budget for the first year of launch, starting an advertisement campaign through different channels should exponentially add to the existing sales, as well as add probable customers for OnePlus’s future launches.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Threats Competition - OnePlus One is in a very competitive segment. There is a need to continuously reinvent the phone to be able to keep the market share. Change in Tastes – The tastes of consumers with regard to smartphones are extremely volatile as seen in the case of Blackberry smartphones which went from having 22 million users in 2010 in the United States to 2.83 million in April 2015. Lack of Exclusivity – The company’s decision to remove invite-only sales of the phone might make an impact on its exclusivity as it will be available to the masses easily now, thus reducing its attractiveness. Distribution – The distribution for this phone is only online. The average consumer is still sceptical of purchasing expensive products like smartphones online. Competitors such as Micromax may take advantage of this by pushing their products through retailers. Findings from SWOT Analysis: The SWOT analysis clearly brings out that the exceptional features offered by OnePlus One at the lowest market price has clearly provided the distinctive edge that has helped them achieve such exceptional sales. Also, the weaknesses show that even after capturing such a big market, there are loopholes that can pose a challenge for the company. The opportunities pave the pathway for catalysing growth in sales of OnePlus One & also show high potential for subsequent launched due to the strong customer base. Also, given the volatile nature of the mobile phone industry, it is highly recommended not to ignore the threats & continuously work on improvement.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

PEST ANALYSIS

POLITICAL: 1. Make in india campaign 2. Growing market 3. Suspicion on foreign products

ECONOMICAL: 1. Smartphone Industry in India 2. Low inflation rate

SOCIAL: 1. Youth 2. Social media presence

TECHNOLOGICAL:

3. Consultation from the users

2. Regular update in OS

1. Cloud Storage

4. Internet penetration

Political Factors Make in India- The launch of ‘Make in India’ campaign by the Government of India on 25th September 2014 will soon witness growth of existing Indian mobile phone companies such as Micromax and also facilitate mushrooming of new companies in this sector. A noticeable impact of this campaign can be seen through the announcement by Spice group to set up a new plant in Uttar Pradesh. Electronics being one of the key sectors of Make in India, tough competition in the fastest growing mobile phones sector, from Indian companies, is assured. Growing market- India ranks among the top two mobile phones market in the whole world. This provides companies a huge base for revenue production and innovation. Suspicion on foreign products- Lately India has become suspicious of phones coming from foreign countries like China. Indian Air force issued alert against Xiaomi last year fearing that the company leaked Indian data to Chinese authorities.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Economic Factors Smartphone Industry in India – Witnessing a 33% growth in the Indian smartphone market for the year 2014-2015, India looks to dominate the global market in future. Other than the existing 34 brands, new brands look to enter the market here as it promises quick growth and penetration. OnePlus has not yet dominated the Indian markets but seems to have a bright future. Low inflation rate – Indian Economy is growing at 7.3% and the Inflation rate has raised from what it was at the start of this year, but is still relatively low at 5%. Smartphones are the new trend and people seem to have an ever higher purchasing power for them. Social Factors Youth – The youth is always looking to get the best features at a low price. OnePlus One fulfils that requirement by providing features that are available in substantially expensive smartphones of other brands. Also the invite only mode entices the youth to but this exclusive phone & flaunt amongst their peers. Social media – The social media presence of the metropolitan youth is quite substantial due to which OnePlus One has been able to get a lot of publicity from its users. The word of mouth publicity & the leverage to offer their invite to anyone of their peers of their choice has increased the want for this phone substantially. Internet penetration - The internet penetration in India is only 19%. Thus, the exclusive availability only through online mode considerably cuts down on the potential number of customers. Technological Factors Regular updates in OS- Cyanogen mod which was the OS used has gone for an exclusivity deal with Micromax in India and thus will no longer be updated in existing OnePlus One mobiles. In a market where update plays an important role, this can spell disaster for the company. However, they have come up with their own OS, which may resolve this issue.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

They are providing regular updates for their OS which are custom made for the model. Also the new update witnesses lesser crashes as compared to previous OS. Cloud storage: OnePlus has partnered with Dropbox and now offers a whopping 1TB of Dropbox space on its OnePlus One which definitely entices users in today’s era of cloud computing. Also, the two-step verification ensures enhanced data safety.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Potter’s 5 Forces Model Named after Michael E. Porter, Porter’s Five Forces methodology is used in this project to analyze the business strategies of smartphone manufacturer OnePlus. The five forces involved are: 1. Threat of New Entrants 2. Threat of Substitutes 3. Bargaining Power of Buyers 4. Bargaining Power of Suppliers 5. Competitive Rivalry

This tool is a handy method to assess how each of the market drivers impact the companies and then based on the analysis suitable business strategies can be devised. Further, companies are known to study the markets they want to approach thoroughly and deeply before they make a move and it is in this perspective that this analysis is undertaken.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Application of Potter’s 5 forces model on OnePlus One Threat of new entrants HIGH

Bargaining power of suppliers HIGH

Rivalry between competitiors - HIGH

Bargaining power of buyers HIGH

Threat of substitutes - MEDIUM

Threat of new entrants The analysis clearly indicated that the threat of new entrants was High. 1. Proprietary Learning- Mobile phone manufacturing requires patents and proprietary knowledge. Companies like Apple and Samsung which are leaders in phone manufacturing are also involved in the patent wars. 2. High Capital Investment- Mobile phone companies require a lot of money to be invested in the set up and also in the R&D department to keep evolving with every passing day. 3. Trade regulations- For companies like OnePlus which import products from China, quite a few trade regulations have to be met in order to sell their products in India. 4. Setting up of distribution network- A lot of effort and money is involved in the distribution network required for the phone manufacturer to reach the customers. 5. High Resistance for new player- The smartphone industry is full of competition as of date and this provides a stiff resistance to any new player who tries to enter into the market.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Threat of substitutes The analysis clearly indicated that the threat of substitutes was Medium. 1. A Necessity rather than Luxury - Mobile phones have become more of a necessity in today’s world and people find it hard to find any substitute for it when away from home. 2. Value for Money - Smartphones provide the maximum features at the cheapest price. Smartphones provide us with options of phone calls and text messages, emails and web surfing, songs and games, camera and other numerous apps. 3. Tablets, Netbook, Smart Watch are Potential Substitutes - There can be different substitutes solving different purposes but not all can be substituted by one device. This leads to high switching cost to substitutes. Bargaining power of buyers The analysis clearly indicated that the bargaining power of buyers had High impact on the success of OnePlus One. 1. Customers have huge influence in phone design and technology selection – It is the consumers that drive the innovation in the smartphone industry. The smartphone companies constantly evolve to meet the demands of the customers 2. Intermediate service providers – The network and strength of the intermediate service providers providing after sales services play a crucial role as customers approach them for after sales services and spare parts. This does not mean that the customers are at the mercy of the companies but it helps them choose a company which provides them with better service. 3. Exclusivity to the customers – In order to please the customers and give them exclusive treatment OnePlus started a unique feature of selling their phones through invite system.

15

Analysis of OnePlus One

Bargaining power of suppliers The analysis clearly indicated that the bargaining power of suppliers had High influence on the success of OnePlus One. 1. OS provided by CyanogenMod – OnePlus boasts about having an OS based on CyanogenMod which is similar to android but provides more options of customization to the consumer. But since it has to rely on the outside supplier for providing the update and support for the CyanogenMod, it gives high power of bargaining to the supplier. 2. Support from OPPO – OnePlus products are manufactured and the support for the same is provided by OPPO, another Chinese phone manufacturer. This makes OPPO a key equipment manufacturer. 3. Supplier availability – The suppliers for OnePlus one are available only in China and all the products have to be imported on demand. This makes the customers rely heavily on the suppliers to provide the products on time. Competitive Rivalry The analysis clearly indicated that the threat from competitive rivalry was found to be High. 1. Established Brands – Entering a market with numerous established brands like Apple, Samsung, Nokia (now Microsoft) and others provide a stiff competition to a new entrant. 2. Breaking loyal customers – Big brands have loyal customers and breaking them away for a new company is difficult and requires a unique feature like OnePlus provides the best features at the cheapest price. 3. High diversity of rivals – OnePlus has come out with only one phone as of now whereas rivals have number of models in the market catering to different segments based on price and purpose of buying the phone which gives people more choices to choose from.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

The Marketing Research Process Problem definition, Decision alternatives and research objectives OnePlus brand launched a new smartphone- OnePlus One. The One was designed to be a low-cost smartphone comparable in performance and quality to competing devices released at around the same time. The company's main goal was to design a smartphone that would be cheap and still not compromise on the performance as well as the quality; one that would balance the quality of high-end devices from its major competitors with a lower price than other phones in its class. The company's primary cost-cutting measure was a decision to exclusively sell the device online. Their method of entering into the market was by conducting a competition, by selecting a few potential customers and by giving them invitation to buy the phone online. This novel idea is being researched and focused mainly in this project. The phone was first made available for sale exclusively from the OnePlus website, but previously required prospective customers to obtain an invitation before they could purchase it. These invitations were primarily distributed by the company through contests, some of which attracted attention for their unconventional in nature. Further the customers would get a couple of invites to share with their friends and family. As per the company they viewed this strategy as a source of sharing your happiness. People would share the invites for others to experience what they have. As of now, the device no longer requires an invite to purchase. The whole campaign was successful and it created wide brand awareness about the company. They are selling the phone at cost price. The strategy of the company is to redistribute their costs to better benefit the user. Rather than putting money towards a large marketing budget, they are focusing on online marketing and community interaction. Rather than working with retail partners, they rely on selling the device online. The relevance of this approach is the marketing strategy of online phone companies or even ecommerce companies to have no profit or even loss to run a successful brand.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Research Plan Development and Information Gathering Our research plan is developed in a way to have a direct interaction with the customer. We have gathered information using primary data sources. The research instrument used is a questionnaire. There are closed ended questions specifying all the possible answers and it provides answers that are relevant to the topic and easier to interpret. There are open ended questions too which allows the respondent to answer in their own words thus measuring how people think in a certain way. We have used Dichotomous questions to know where the user buys the phone from- online or offline, a Multiple Choice question to know the various factors which the respondent consider while buying a phone, Likert Scale questions to know the importance of service centres and the importance of offers for a respondent and Single Answer questions to know the price range, the reason for buying a phone and the motivation to buy one. The Indian smartphone sale is driven by teens and youth. 22% of the buyers are teens and majority of the users are youth. So the major sample consists of this majority section in India to know the general trend of smartphone usage. We have analysed responses from over 100 respondents. The respondents were contacted through social media and online mediums such as Facebook, Whatsapp and Gmail. We have also used our personal contacts to get the response. Online research is inexpensive, fast and versatile. Also respondents in Asia feel more pressure to conform and therefore not be as forthcoming in offline activities such as focus groups as online. So the complete information collection was through online media.

Information Analysis

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Buying roles and decision making process For analyzing the buying roles and decision making process, we have used three questions. These were how different people/factors affect buying decision and the unstated and secret needs in purchasing the phone. We analyzed the questionnaire to find out the possible options customers look into for advice on their purchase and found out that friends and online forums has a 89% chance of affecting a customer decision. With its invitation model and high online presence OnePlus One definitely manages to score points in this section.

Persons affecting the decision making 6%

5%

Friends

45%

Online forums Relatives

44% Shopkeepers or service centres review

While analysing the unstated needs of the customer, we found most of the respondents needed the phone to have a good battery back-up (84 respondents) and a good processor (80 respondents). Again one plus one comes out winner in this as well as it has both a good process as well as a good battery back-up.

19

Analysis of OnePlus One

Requirements of specifications Sum of Operating System

38

Sum of Better Camera

49

Sum of Slim and light weight

45

Sum of Pen drive compatible

14

Sum of Stylish

34

Sum of Cost effective

30

Sum of High Screen resolution

32

Sum of Good battery backup

84

Sum of Good Graphics processor

29

Sum of Good processor and RAM

80

Sum of Large Screen size

36 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Also we tried evaluating the secret needs of the customer when they buy a phone. Majority (71%) of the surveyed group wanted their phones to show them as formal, mature and techsavy while and/or at the same time being an owner of an exclusive phone, which are the parameters OnePlus one has positioned itself in. In fact 20% of the respondents wanted an exclusive phone, which is a need that OnePlus One managed to tap in by making their phones available on invitation basis only.

Secret needs when buying a phone Formal and mature

6%

Latest released phone Popularly used phone

27%

20%

Stylish 7%

Tech-Savy

Using an exclusive phone Others

24%

8% 8%

Purchase Behaviour Consumer purchase behaviour was tracked by analysing response of the customer to the channel used, the amount they planned to spend on purchase, effect of flash sale on consumers, importance of good service network and trade-off between brand and specification.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

While analysing the sales channel preference we noticed that only 56% of consumers prefer E-commerce over retail outlet. We felt this was not a good thing for OnePlus one phone since it sells only through the e-commerce channel. However, targeting the customer who is planning to buy phones in the range of 10,000 to 30,000, we found out that a higher proportion (61%) of people were willing to buy online.

Sales channel for Rs.10,000 to 30,000 Budget

Sales Channel

39 44% 56%

61%

E-commerce portal E-commerce portal

Retail Outlet

Retail Outlet

Studying the importance of flash sales, we asked respondents if they were willing to wait for an offer to come. On analysing the responses we found that a staggering 74% were expected to wait for the flash sales and will attempt to make a purchase in the flash sales. Also we studied the expenditure people are planning to incur on the phone and found majority of them wanted a phone in Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 30,000 category (82 respondents).

Budget

Sum of

Expected

Likelihood

response to

Score

flash sales

No of people

Percentage of

willing to spend

people expected to

in the given

participate in flash

range

sales

Below Rs 10,000

38

7.6

10

76

20,000

198

39.6

56

71

Rs 20,000-

96

19.2

26

74

Rs 10,000-

21

Analysis of OnePlus One

30,000 Rs 30,00040,000

27

5.4

6

90

Rs 40,000

19

3.8

7

54

Grand Total

378

75.6

105

72

Above

Similar study on importance of service centre to customer showed a Importance score of 390 which means an expected 74 out of 105 gave importance to presence of service centres nearby before making a purchase. With importance to brand v/s specification to trade off, we got a importance to specification score of just 308, which meant that only 59% of respondents would value specifications over branded phone, which is something that will cause problems for OnePlus one. Budget

of Specification

current

preference

phone

score

Percentage index

Count

Expectation specification expected

10000-15,000 65

24

13

54

15000-20,000 72

22

14.4

65

20000-25,000 48

16

9.6

60

5000-10,000

54

16

10.8

68

Above 25,000

67

25

13.4

54

5000

2

2

0.4

20

Grand Total

308

105

61.6

59

Less

of

than

Gist of Analysis The analysis of the marketing model of OnePlus One through an exhaustive primary survey clearly indicates towards the success of this model across all the parameters considered i.e. the decision influencers, which were primarily social media forums and OnePlus One due to its strong presence throughout the social media definitely scores well in this criterion;

22

Analysis of OnePlus One

matching all the secret needs of consumers and also at the same time catering to the specification requirements of them. The results of the sales channel favored e-commerce channel but given that the questionnaire was primarily filled by online users and still the preference for e-commerce for these consumers was just around 56 %. This figure clearly indicates the preference for retail medium for Indian consumers. On an overall basis, the analysis clearly proves the marketing model of OnePlus One to be highly efficient. On the other hand, Porter’s 5 Point analysis clearly indicates that the threat from the analyzed parameters towards the success of OnePlus One is high and thus, OnePlus needs to continuously devise new strategies to stay updated and competitive in the market.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Positioning strategy for OnePlus One The customers’ perception about a brand relative to other competitive brands, based on various product attributes, positions a product in market. Innovative positioning strategies adopted by different companies, leads to perception building, which establishes a brand in the market & positions it in the requisite domain. The innovative strategies adopted by OnePlus One to position itself in the Indian market are enlisted below: 1. ‘Never Settle’ ― The branding statement of the company, which means that company would strive for the best user experience and not rest till they have found it. 2. This positions OnePlus One amongst a niche range of products that strive for perfection. 3. Branded itself as Beast ― often referred to as ‘The Beast’ due to its unparalleled configuration, which ensures smoother and faster performance. 4. This clearly positions OnePlus One as an invincible product amongst competitors. 5. Most Economical Phone ― OnePlus One has the best features available when compared to phones priced in its range. It leaves behind several high end phones when it comes to a comparative assessment based on the configuration. 6. This ensures OnePlus One offers the best configuration in its price band and leads it. 7. Exclusivity ― OnePlus One positioned itself apart from others by providing exclusivity by invitation-only mode of sale. This provided leverage to customers having an invite, and the requests they received for the invite ensured they enjoy exclusivity. This led to branding of its proud owners into a niche bracket as well. 8. An all new OS ― CynogenMod gave the first experience as the new android based OS of OnePlus One. This helped the company create a demand for itself by introducing a unique OS that would break the monotone of using existing OS. 9. Segmented Consumers ― Youth, the company positioned itself in a way that it targeted the technology savvy youth which is always hungry for more when it comes to performance and configuration. Also, the economical price bracket which is a major influencing factor for youth ensured there was no stopping for the success of OnePlus One.

24

Analysis of OnePlus One

10. Positioning Aligned Goal ― OnePlus One aims to provide the configuration of high price segment phones to the consumers of the low price segment phones, at the same time ensuring that quality is never compromised. Suggestions and Indicative Foresights 1. Aligned with the company’s tagline ‘Never Settle’, it should constantly evolve new models loaded with upgradations. The delay in release of new models leads to questioning the brand’s objective & poses a threat to its positioning. 2. Needs to improve the customer service network as it was an important feature which is present as a weak area in the company, when it comes to expanding in Indian markets 3. Since the company focuses on the niche market of phones catering to tech-geeks, it needs to ensure timely updates on its Oxygen OS. In fact, it should make all attempts to make it open source to cater to needs of tech-geeks. 4. Another method of maintaining its positioning as phone is exclusively for tech-geeks, it should maintain the by invite only model of sale in the initial phase of product life cycle. Also in the primary research of market, it was noticed that 20% of respondents had a secret need for their mobile phones to be exclusive. 5. Company must continue with its forum of collecting opinions of users through social media channels, to ensure that target group of tech-geeks can feel connected to brand. 6. OnePlus should continue with having an exclusive e-commerce partner, so that it can keep the marketing cost down. Also as the smartphone model has already entered star segment, having an exclusive e-commerce partner aggressively advertising for the product, could enable OnePlus to gain better profits even though the phone price is maintained. Also 61% respondents would prefer to purchase from the online portal than from the retail stores. 7. As barriers to entry are very low and there is every chance another brand can target the niche market of phones for tech-geeks, OnePlus could organize competitions for techgeeks on an annual basis to ensure better brand perception in the minds of target customer. 8. OnePlus also needs to enter into other tech related fields other than smart phones and cater to the tech-geeks to keep the loyalty of tech-geeks.

25

Analysis of OnePlus One

9. Flash sales also could be used to attract early adopters as 71% of respondents in primary market research have been found to be in favour of flash sales.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

Gist of Findings The market analysis of the success of OnePlus One based on several analyses could be summarised as follows: a) The SWOT analysis clearly indicates that OnePlus One marketed itself by exploiting the weakness of the other products and using them as its own strengths. The Strengths were highlighted in such a manner that people did not pay attention to the weaker side of the phone. b) The Potter’s 5 forces model was applied on the product and it showed that since there is high threat to new entrants, still OnePlus was able to create a market for its own by banking on its technology and exclusive selling strategy. c) PEST analysis focused on the political, economic, social and technological aspects of OnePlus One. It emphasised on various issues the company faced while launching its first product in the Indian market. Though it faced problems on the political front being a Chinese brand, the good economic condition helped in its sales. Similarly being advanced in the technical aspect, the phone targeted the youth of the nation. d) In the last part of the project we studied about the STP of the product. It was clear that the phone was targeting the youth and techno-savvy people. The phone provided best features at the cheapest price and hence positioned itself as a ‘Beast’ in the market of smartphones. To conclude, it can be stated that the innovative approach adopted by OnePlus for marketing its product One has been highly successful for achieving outstanding sales figures and at the same time drastically cut down on expenses. Even though, there were several risks involved but being the first risk taker definitely gave OnePlus the edge to create a niche for its product. As the saying goes, “High Risks, High Gains”, has been actually instrumental in this scenario.

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Analysis of OnePlus One

REFERENCES 1. http://www.knowyourmobile.com/mobile-phones/oneplus-one/22347/oneplus-onereview-oneplus-two-landing-july-27 2. http://www.techspot.com/products/smartphones/oneplus-one.102478/ 3. http://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-tips-for-success-372198/ 4. http://thenextweb.com/market-intelligence/2015/03/17/how-oneplus-ones-marketingmade-it-the-most-desirable-phone-in-the-world/ 5. http://www.cnbc.com/2014/10/23/meet-the-299-smartphone-you-can-only-get-byinvite.html#. 6. http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/LACmx5FuDDOSy1zvlZrBLO/Enter-the-dragonChinese-phones-swamp-the-Indian-market.html 7. http://dazeinfo.com/2014/07/11/mobile-internet-india-2014-349-million-uniquemobile-phone-users-70-traffic-mobile-india-shining-infographic/ 8. Sanjeev Davey, Anuradha Davey, Assesment of smart phone addition in Indian Adolescents, 2014, NCBI, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4336980/ 9. http://www.totalyouthresearch.com/11-statistics-who-influences-gen-y-smartphonepurchase-decisions/ 10. https://mobilesocialwork.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/how-young-people-use-mobilestop-7-statistics-from-the-mobile-youth-report/ 11. http://www.totalyouthresearch.com/16-statistics-gen-y-mobile-ownership/ 12. http://www.totalyouthresearch.com/business-case-gen-y/ 13. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Teens-drive-Indiansmartphone-sales-study-finds/articleshow/22406572.cms 14. http://www.statista.com/statistics/278407/number-of-social-network-users-in-india/ 15. http://www.deccanchronicle.com/141022/technology-mobiles-and-tabs/article/indianair-force-ban-xiaomi-smartphones 16. http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/its-economics-the-reason-smartphonemakers-are-taking-the-make-in-india-call/ 17. http://advantage.marketline.com/Product?pid=MLIP1636-0010

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Analysis of OnePlus One

18. Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller, Abraham Koshy, Mithileshwar Jha, 2013, Marketing Management, A south Asian perspective, Delhi, A Pearson Publication.

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