OnePlus has a new flagship killer for the TV industry

OnePlus, the leading premium smartphone brand that burst out onto the smartphone scene in late 2013, has slowly become a household name. Founded by Pete Lau (CEO) and Carl Pei, the brand has slowly paved its way into the mainstream market with its premium offerings at an aggressive price.

The company has emerged as a top player in the industry locking horns with major brands such as Apple and Samsung. After successfully dominating the smartphone industry in a short period of time, it seems the company plans to achieve new heights in other technology segments. OnePlus is now gearing up to set foot in the TV market with its first ever premium TV for the Indian consumers. So prepare yourself for a top-of-the-line, performance-driven TVs from the Shenzhen-based smartphone goliath, that has already proved itself to be a worthy challenger in the highly competitive smartphone segment.

Background: OnePlus' smartphone market

Started as an idea in a café in Shenzhen, China's innovation hub, OnePlus made its way to the sub-continent shores in December 2014, launching its first flagship device in India. The same year, it started operations in several European countries including Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary and the UK. Initially, the company used the invitation model to keep its smartphones exclusive to its core fans. But after receiving a tremendous response from the consumers, OnePlus decided to make its devices more accessible and easy to purchase after the OnePlus 2.

In last four years, OnePlus has successfully launched power-packed Android smartphones that changed the definition of flagship smartphones in the Indian and global market. Every product from the house of OnePlus proved that high-end features and performance is not only limited to a super-premium price-point. Users deserve to experience flagship performance and new technologies in a premium price segment.

The company's constant efforts in working towards this particular aim made OnePlus the fastest growing brand in the premium smartphone segment. OnePlus become the biggest Android premium smartphone brand within just 3 years of entering the Indian market. If we talk about numbers, OnePlus captured 48 percent market share in Q4, 2017 as per IDC's Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker Q4 2017.

What's next?

After taking the smartphone market by storm, OnePlus is taking another step towards its vision to build premium flagship products that improve the human experience through simplicity, efficiency, and intelligent functionality. OnePlus has today announced that the company is taking its first steps in developing a Smart TV for today's tech savvy users.

OnePlus Founder and CEO, Pete Lau, will be leading the new division besides the rapidly growing smartphone division. "For most of us, there are four major environments we experience each day: the home, the workplace, the commute, and being on-the-move. The home - perhaps the most important environment experience - is just starting to enjoy the benefits of intelligent connectivity. Something that seems as simple as displaying the photos from your mobile phone to a television is still difficult to achieve. With the development of AI technology, our imagination is endless - and we are looking forward to the future." said Pete Lau.

A consumer's brand

Everyone's aware of how well OnePlus understands its audience. The company has always valued user-centric features and design philosophy, which will again be seen across the new TV division. With the upcoming product, OnePlus is set to address gaps in the television industry, something the brand successfully achieved in the smartphone market. Having said that, we are expecting high-quality hardware in the premium TV segment with the latest technologies to create a seamless user experience. Like OnePlus smartphones, OnePlus premium TV is said to be minimalistic and timeliness in design and software approach.

OnePlus Premium TV will be called?

OnePlus has reached out to the community in its classic fashion to help name the product and suggest features, as it did with its custom software - OxygenOS.

Users just have to submit a proposed name for the TV product before October 17. The OnePlus team will choose their favorite 10 suggestions. Each of the 10 finalists will receive a pair of OnePlus Bullets Wireless headphones. 10 finalists will also be chosen from oneplus.cn. From the combined 20 finalists, 1 grand-prize winner will be chosen by the OnePlus team. If a winning name is selected from these forums, the user who suggested the winning name will receive the following:

• Premium OnePlus TV product.
• A trip (round-trip airfare and hotel) to the first OnePlus TV launch event.

The competition

We've seen few examples of AI/TV integration recently. Amazon has its Fire Edition TVs by Toshiba and Element, which has Alexa integration. Google Assistant also has its services integrated within the Chromecast streaming devices. OnePlus seems to be cooking something on the same grounds, bringing quality hardware and smart functionality together seamlessly.

With OnePlus now emerging as a challenger in the TV industry, TV giants like Sony and Samsung could face some serious competition. But what makes OnePlus different from its competition is its philosophy towards the design of the products.

For instance, the company's latest flagship OnePlus 6 is easily one of the best smartphones out there, including the Apple iPhone X, Google Pixel 2 and Samsung Galaxy S9.

"Our users have acknowledged the excellence in the OnePlus build quality across our smartphone devices, so we have that reputation and acknowledgment," Lau said.

Although Lau and OnePlus have just begun the process of producing and selling the TVs, we still believe the company will continue to impress and attract new consumers with its top-of-the-line blend of hardware and software.