Brands

OnePlus: Striking a balance between premium & affordable

Published

6 years ago

July 20, 2020

NEW DELHI: Leading mobile brand OnePlus will be launching its new smartphone lineup in India 'OnePlus Nord' this week. The company also launched its flagship phone, OnePlus 8 Pro, a few months back. So, what's unique about the upcoming product? The company has hinted that the new smartphone will be affordable for price-conscious young buyers.

At present, the new handset will be launching only in India and Europe. This is the company's second attempt in the mid-range smartphone segment after the OnePlus X, which was launched in 2015 and discontinued in 2016 after a poor response from the market. That time, the company emphasised its commitment to premium products over affordable ones. Four years later, in a strategy shift, OnePlus will return to its low-cost roots, while expanding into new product categories. The decision to add a mid-range product in its kitty is to provide more offerings and to fill another need in the market.

How difficult it is for a premium brand like OnePlus to launch a budget device without hurting the brand value? Makani Creatives MD and co-founder Sameer Makani shares, “Offering products at a lower range can help increase the reach of the brand. The brand value can be fixed if the products are marketed with a focused approach of reaching two different sets of the audience with the pricing model. However, targeting the right bunch of audiences while offering products collectively provide a choice to the audience and this can impact the positioning of the brand. If the same experiences are applied across product lines, then it may hamper the premium product positioning.”

He also adds, “Many brands are working towards creating variations in their product line to touch-base audiences globally and locally and expand the TG. This can be done effectively with a clearly distinct marketing approach for the different product lines.”

Strikingly, the announcement has come at a time when there’s already a backlash against Chinese products and Indian companies such as Micromax and Lava also announced their return in the smartphone market.

Fulco founder and MD Sabyasachi Mitter says that the new strategy of OnePlus is nothing but a return to its roots. “The brand dominates the premium segment but it is not seen anymore in the mid-range segment and getting into that category again is a part of the long-term game. The idea is to convince consumers to buy a low-cost alternative to OnePlus 8 and to get them into the ecosystem. The announcement was made amidst the boycott Chinese brand movement so it can be a backup strategy to attract more customers into its community.”

Last year, the brand roped in highly popular and expensive Hollywood star Robert Downey as the brand ambassador. In the past, it has collaborated with Amitabh Bachchan also. So, while entering into an all-new segment, will it be the right move for the brand to opt for a fresh face?

TRA Research CEO N Chandramouli feels, “In my opinion, the brand ambassador and the brand must have overlapping ‘personalities’, such that they are synchronous in their walk and talk, and so it would be strange if OnePlus used the same ambassador for both. With a few budget phone failures as experience, OnePlus must now think of a radically different approach and take the risk of launching a sub-brand with a clear distinction and without OnePlus attached. Similarly, even the brand ambassador, if they choose to use one, should also be different and aligned to the budget brand.”

Mitter asserts, “With a strategic shift, I believe the brand will just have this line up without any brand ambassador in the initial phase and then, if needed, it might get a personality onboard but at the same time it can’t be Robert Downey Junior as that might create a huge disturbance in its brand-loving community.”

There has been a void in the mid-tier smartphone segments. Brands like Xiaomi, Vivo and RealMe dominate the budget segment whereas Apple, Samsung and OnePlus are generating good sales in the higher price bracket. However, Micromax and Lava recently announced that both the brands will focus on the mid-range and entry-level segments upon their return.

The original OnePlus One was a ground-breaking phone, selling for an approximate price range of $300 at a time when unlocked iPhones cost more than twice as much. Since then, the price factor of OnePlus phones has risen exponentially. A few years back, Apple also came up with the same strategy when it launched iPhone SE in 2016. OnePlus has always tried to copy what Apple does by launching one phone every year and giving a mid-cycle upgrade to previous products.

Meanwhile, the strategy predicts OnePlus eagerly wants to grab the market share of both segments and if it promises to offer similar experience across its product line up, how it is going to impact the premium products at large?

Chandramouli asserts, “Similar experiences across the premium and budget brand leave the premium customers feel cheated and the mistrust in the brand rises.”

Mitter says, “The brand will follow Apple’s brand strategy and make the new line up more like the SE segment for OnePlus ensuring that it doesn’t affect its core community of flagship owners, they can’t afford to disappoint them in any way with this massive change in strategy.”

Follow Tellychakkar for the consumer facing news & entertainment

Related Topics:Apple OnePlus premium segment smartphone market

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Brands

Ahmad Muneeb elevated to VP – HR centre of excellence at Zepto

Published

1 day ago

February 7, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Zepto has elevated Ahmad Muneeb to vice president – HR centre of excellence, placing him at the helm of the company’s total rewards, executive compensation and organisational effectiveness as the quick-commerce firm powers through a high-growth phase.

The move follows his stint as senior director of the HR COE, where he played a central role in preparing the company for IPO readiness while scaling its people analytics capabilities. During this period, Muneeb helped align complex performance management structures with more streamlined and scalable employee experience frameworks.

In his new role, he will steer the design of total rewards strategies, executive compensation planning and organisational design, while also overseeing performance management, employee experience initiatives and people analytics programmes.

Before joining Zepto, Muneeb spent nearly three years at Meesho, where he held multiple rewards and HR business partner roles. Earlier in his career, he worked as a senior rewards consultant at Mercer, advising high-tech clients on compensation benchmarking, pay structures and talent-focused reward frameworks.

He began his hr journey at Cognizant, where he supported compensation programmes for nearly two lakh employees across India and worked on m&a compensation alignment and skill-based pay initiatives. Prior to moving into HR, Muneeb started his career as a software engineer at Netcracker, bringing a technical grounding to his people strategy work.

With a mix of consulting rigour, start-up agility and enterprise-scale experience, Muneeb’s elevation signals Zepto’s continued focus on building robust people systems as it races towards its next phase of growth.

Brands

Dell names Aishwarya Sudhakar director of marketing intelligence

Published

1 day ago

February 7, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

INDIA: Dell Technologies is doubling down on artificial intelligence in marketing. The company has elevated Aishwarya Sudhakar to director of marketing measures and intelligence engineering, tasking her with building an enterprise-wide framework for AI-led measurement and customer intelligence.

In the role, Sudhakar will oversee unified data strategy, advanced modelling and context engineering: areas increasingly central to how large technology firms link marketing performance to business outcomes. Her remit includes shaping scalable systems that support Dell’s next phase of AI deployment across marketing functions.

Sudhakar steps into the position after holding a series of senior roles at Dell, including AI lead for marketing orchestration, senior manager, and senior data scientist in customer insights. Across these roles, she led global teams working on large-scale machine learning models, data pipelines and customer analytics.

Before joining Dell, she began her career at Tata Consultancy Services as a systems engineer and later founded Oclor, a shopping discovery start-up, where she built end-to-end technology platforms. The combination of enterprise-scale data work and entrepreneurial experience has shaped her focus on product-led, engineering-first innovation.

As technology companies seek sharper attribution and intelligence in an AI-saturated market, Dell’s move underscores the growing importance of marketing measurement as an engineering discipline rather than a reporting function.

Brands

Gaurav Pathak returns to Adidas in key accounts leadership role

Published

1 day ago

February 7, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

GURUGRAM: Adidas has appointed Gaurav Pathak as director of key and field accounts, bringing back an executive who began his leadership career at the company.

In the role, Pathak will be responsible for deepening strategic partnerships and expanding key, field and export accounts, with a mandate to accelerate growth across the Indian market. The appointment marks a return to Adidas after nearly a decade across premium retail and footwear brands.

Pathak most recently served as head of retail and business development at Ecco, where he focused on partner-led growth, market risk mitigation and operational scale. Before that, he spent eight years at House of Anita Dongre Limited, rising to general manager and leading regional operations across western and southern India.

His earlier career includes a stint as regional sales manager for Karnataka at United Colors of Benetton India and a six-year run at Adidas, where he held sales leadership roles.

With competition intensifying in India’s lifestyle and footwear market, Pathak’s brief will centre on strengthening field execution while aligning large accounts with Adidas’s broader commercial priorities.