OnePlus CEO Pete Lau: If you build the best Android experience you can, great sales will follow

Pete Lau, founder and CEO of OnePlus decided to drop by the Qualcomm 4G/5G summit and discuss the future of his company and to tell us why he’s excited to be working with Qualcomm. Interestingly, the very first thing Lau said on grabbing the mic was that OnePlus would remain an online-only company. He also added that the company would only focus on building one great Android phone at a time. No more OnePlus X, only flagship phones. Underscoring this point was Lau’s response to a question on the OnePlus 3’s sales. OnePlus 3 sales When asked about sales figures for the OnePlus 3, Lau said that there was one policy that the company had set in the very beginning and that was that they would never discuss sales figures. Lau doesn’t want to let the company or its employees fall into the “trap” of focussing on sales figures. As he explained via his translator, if you build the best Android experience you can, great sales will follow. He said that his company was expected to focus on what it does and what it does best, just like Apple. The focus is always on the product. Not on sales. OnePlus’ India connection Lau also reiterated his commitment to India, repeatedly insisting that India was a major market for the company and that they intended to focus on sales in our country and China. He also outlined a rather ambitious plan of taking over Europe and North America with his phones, adding that he expected that process to take over 10 years. Pointing to the OnePlus 3, Lau said that he was happy with the feedback that he received from the community, a sure sign that they’d built a great product. The question of limited stocks of the OnePlus 3 was brought up and Lau explained that the issue with stocks stemmed from a supply issue with the Samsung made OLED panels that the OnePlus 3 uses. The only thing he could say on that front was they were working to resolve the issue as best they could. Being an online-only company, however, Lau did say that India’s excellent e-commerce market has him very excited. The most important features on a smartphone In Lau’s opinion, the three most important features on a smartphone are a good, basic UI experience, a great camera and aesthetic appeal. The first he says is a given. Nobody will want to use a phone with a clunky UI no matter how good the hardware. The second, he says, is important because by their estimates, the camera app is the most frequently used app on a smartphone. It’s at this point that Lau also brings up the Qualcomm connection. Stating his excitement for Qualcomm’s “stellar” work on the chipset front, Lau claims that he’s very keen on using the Snapdragon chipsets’ full potential. After all, features like HVX (for image processing) and advanced DSP (digital signal processors) aren’t available on every platform. Going the extra mile with Qualcomm’s hardware is, in his opinion, a worthwhile investment. Lau didn’t really discuss much else at the event. Any question regarding the future of the OnePlus phones, speculation on Daydream and the Snapdragon 830, etc., he dismissed saying that he doesn’t comment on the future. He did add, however, that the Android N update would come to existing OnePlus 3 devices this year. Maybe. Disclaimer: Tech2 was invited to the Qualcomm 4G/5G summit at Hong Kong by Qualcomm. All expenses related to travel and accommodation were borne by Qualcomm. However, every effort has been made to keep the event’s coverage as impartial as possible.