Strategic move to induce customers.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: The Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus has cut the price of OnePlus One smartphone in the US giving signs of an early launch of the company’s latest flagship device OnePlus Two.
A month ago, OnePlus began a special flash sale of OnePlus One, by slashing down the price of the device to just $250 for the 16 GB version and $300 for the 32 GB model. Many who failed to buy the device within the stipulated timeframe felt cheated but now, with the company making the prices permanent, they can own the cyanogen-based performance oriented device without thinking twice.
OnePlus, a start-up based in China, entered countries, including India, during the final phase of last year and took the buyers attention by offering high-end performance for a reasonable price. OnePlus said a “hard look at the numbers to make sure [they] were maintaining [their] commitment to users.”
According to the company, with the availability of the components and the engineering costs coming down, it feels that this is the best time to give the customers a price cut. But in reality the cut in the cost of OnePlus One is a business tactic to give enough room for the company’s latest flagship device OnePlus Two to make an entry in the US market.
The release of OnePlus 2 in the US is likely to happen sometime in the month of July as OnePlus is facing increasing competition from its Asian counterparts like Asus and MI in the low-cost smartphone segment. Regardless of the company’s interest, the sudden price cutting strategy will boost the sales of OnePlus One as it has now become one of the best buy smartphones at the current price range.
Adding to this, OnePlus is also offering users an additional benefit of one years’ Dropbox Pro subscription just for an extra $50 along with the 64GB version of the device. With Dropbox pro subscription, users can upload and save 1Tb of data in the 256-bit AES and SSL protected encrypted storage.
The Dropbox Pro subscription can help in extending the storage space of the device, inadvertent to that, users can also make use of this feature on all other platforms such as Windows, Linux and Mac. The normal price of Dropbox Pro subscription for a year is $99, which means users who opt for this option will end up saving $50.