500k Smartphones Sold on $300 Marketing Budget

[candyflip]

It hasn't gone perfectly, but that's pretty impressive.

The rise of Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus has been impressive, and today it has revealed that is has sold more than 500,000 OnePlus One handsets since it was first announced in April this year.

The figure was revealed in an interview with Forbes, and the company?s co-founder Carl Pei said there?s now a stretch goal of one million units before the end of the year.

Perhaps more impressive than the sales numbers of the fledgling device maker is the fact that all of this has been achieved on a marketing budget of just $300 ? all of which was spent experimenting with different types of Facebook ads. ?We found that we?ve now reached a critical mass of users, and they are helping us spread the word organically,? Pei said.

However, while its handsets are selling faster than the company can make them, Pei also revealed that OnePlus was making less than $10 profit on each device. As such, maintaining this high volume of sales will be critical to enable the company to grow and expand its product line.

http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2014/1...dget-just-300/

[sandman!]

that is impressive

[C H R I S]

The promo video for this phone is very well done... make you want one.

[MaDalton]

i am still very happy with mine - no issues, no bloatware and always on the latest Android update

[incredibleworkethic]

Is it still invite only?

[MaDalton]

Originally Posted by incredibleworkethic

Is it still invite only?

by now it has become very easy to get one - just go to www.oneplus.net and ask on their forum

or wait a couple days: http://preorder.oneplus.net/

[candyflip]

I just got an email a few hours ago about Pre Order Round 2 with no invite needed.

I gave my invite to someone here and they used it. Since then their emailing has ramped up a little bit. They've definitely figure out how to make email and social media work for their brand.

Obviously they are paying someone to do all this and have to send the email somehow, so they've spent more than $300...if you want to get technical.

[Slappin Fish]

Yeah I call BS, they are clearly doing a good job spreading their stories and the phone is very good but "we are a start-up" was already bullshit with Chinese phone maker Oppo owning them.

Here I'd like to see what exactly is included under this definition of marketing. I'd assume it doesn't cover employees hours, promoting posts, concepting of any sort, designing images, the launch event, etc.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qfpq8hTPplY

[dyna mo]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

i am still very happy with mine - no issues, no bloatware and always on the latest Android update

android? say wht!?

[dyna mo]

Originally Posted by Slappin Fish

Yeah I call BS, they are clearly doing a good job spreading their stories and the phone is very good but "we are a start-up" was already bullshit with Chinese phone maker Oppo owning them.

Here I'd like to see what exactly is included under this definition of marketing. I'd assume it doesn't cover employees hours, promoting posts, concepting of any sort, designing images, the launch event, etc.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qfpq8hTPplY

totally agree. there's no way in fcuk theyh could launch a hardware requiring big bucks spent on manufacturing on the front-end. 500k phones to manufacture is prolly $100 million in manu costs alone, $300 marketing? riiiiiiiiiiiight...........

[seeandsee]

Lol only 10$, i bet its more, its pure profit after all shit

[MaDalton]

it actually doesn't matter much what some people believe - everyone can take apart that phone, look up the costs of the parts and add them together

the 64gb version is $349 - look up the specs - when they say they make $10 per phone i'll believe them

all other Android phones with similar specs are $600 to $900

[dyna mo]

I would bet that phone coast $200 per phone to make and $90 per phone to sell.

i bet their roi is <10% so yeah, I can see them profiting ~$10-$20/phone.

good for them.

[MaDalton]

and i bet your numbers are wrong but we both will never find out the truth

[dyna mo]

would you invest millions of dollars on a risky hardware launched into an already over-saturated market with a $300 marketing budget?

of course not.

any realistic product launch with a $100 million launch budget like oneplus certainly must of had calculates marketing to be 50-100% of product cost. that's just simply realistic accounting. not one single investor that ponies up 10s of millions of dollars or chinese yen to get this off the ground would ever allow or enter into a business plan that has a $300 marketing plan for a $100 million + risk.

[C H R I S]

Yeah $300 is bullshit. Just that video is a few K to produce.

[mineistaken]

You can twist those numbers to suit your agenda. They might count those 300 as what they paid to other companies for ads and not count huge bucks they spent on the salaries of their guys who did all the marketing, social media and so on.

[Slappin Fish]

Originally Posted by seeandsee

Lol only 10$, i bet its more, its pure profit after all shit

That is one of the few things I do believe in the article.

The OnePlus One is made in the same factory that makes the Oppo Find 7a (which costs $700) but the One is sold in countries where it won't eat into Find 7 sales too much and "invitation only" prevents it from disrupting supply.

My guess is Oppo created the Oneplus brand and is selling the Oneplus One at almost cost seeking to penetrate western markets.

I hate their marketing but it's a great deal.

[candyflip]

Originally Posted by mineistaken

You can twist those numbers to suit your agenda. They might count those 300 as what they paid to other companies for ads and not count huge bucks they spent on the salaries of their guys who did all the marketing, social media and so on.

That's exactly what they are doing.

At one point they gave out t-shirts and posted a photo of a trailer full of tshirts. Even in China that's gotta cost more than $300.

[dyna mo]

Originally Posted by Slappin Fish

That is one of the few things I do believe in the article.

The OnePlus One is made in the same factory that makes the Oppo Find 7a (which costs $700) but the One is sold in countries where it won't eat into Find 7 sales too much and "invitation only" prevents it from disrupting supply.

My guess is Oppo created the Oneplus brand and is selling the Oneplus One at almost cost seeking to penetrate western markets.

I hate their marketing but it's a great deal.

DRAMAs
!!

Yesterday, news broke that Chinese documents allegedly showed that OPPO owned almost the entirety of OnePlus. Media outlets, along with fans and observers speculated what exactly that meant for the two supposed competitors.



Today, OnePlus emailed us a statement on the situation.

?We understand the confusion as many people are just finding out about OnePlus. But as we?ve said from the beginning, OnePlus is a separately run company that does share common investors with OPPO.
One of those investors is OPPO Electronic. OPPO Electronic is an investment company and is not the same as OPPO Mobile. OnePlus is also in talks with other investors.?
That may be technically correct, but it is safe to assume that OPPO Electronic is also an investor in OPPO Mobile, who is a competitor to OnePlus. It is not unusual for an investment firm to diversify within the same market, but the Chinese media outlet stated that OPPO Electronic made up the entirety of OnePlus? ownership (the article stated ?100%?) that would make it unusual, especially when that investment firm shares its namesake with a competitor.


http://www.gizchina.com/2014/04/28/o...o-controversy/

[Slappin Fish]

Originally Posted by dyna mo

DRAMAs
!!

Yesterday, news broke that Chinese documents allegedly showed that OPPO owned almost the entirety of OnePlus. Media outlets, along with fans and observers speculated what exactly that meant for the two supposed competitors[...]

Who could have guessed ....





But in a way it does show what a great deal the Oneplus One is at this price.

[MaDalton]

Originally Posted by dyna mo

would you invest millions of dollars on a risky hardware launched into an already over-saturated market with a $300 marketing budget?

of course not.

any realistic product launch with a $100 million launch budget like oneplus certainly must of had calculates marketing to be 50-100% of product cost. that's just simply realistic accounting. not one single investor that ponies up 10s of millions of dollars or chinese yen to get this off the ground would ever allow or enter into a business plan that has a $300 marketing plan for a $100 million + risk.

while I find the $300 marketing budget claim amusing, they for sure did not have $100 million like you say.

I followed them almost since day one - i made the first post on GFY about this phone

they do not buy ads, they only sell online, they based their whole campaign on social media and mouth to mouth

but I know you like to argue and once you have an opinion you'll never change it anyways - therefore I shall not argue with you since we'll never agree anyways

just a few links

http://www.techspot.com/article/861-...tegy-analysis/

http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/201...neplus-one.cfm

(the last one says a Galaxy S5 costs about $256 and they order millions of them)

[dyna mo]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

while I find the $300 marketing budget claim amusing, they for sure did not have $100 million like you say.

I followed them almost since day one - i made the first post on GFY about this phone

they do not buy ads, they only sell online, they based their whole campaign on social media and mouth to mouth

but I know you like to argue and once you have an opinion you'll never change it anyways - therefore I shall not argue with you since we'll never agree anyways

just a few links

http://www.techspot.com/article/861-...tegy-analysis/

http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/201...neplus-one.cfm

(the last one says a Galaxy S5 costs about $256 and they order millions of them)

argue? I didn't even realize we were disagreeing. you posted that you believed them re: the $10 per phone profit and I replied agreeing with you and adding some basic accounting.

so while it's neat and all that you want to make this about me and needing to argue, but i'm simply chitty chatting about an arcane topic

and thanks for verifying the #s I posted earlier stating this phone prolly cost ~$200 to make.


oh and hi5 for being the first gfyer to start a thread about it, wow!