Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus plans local engineering team for India

BENGALURU: Chinese smartphone upstart OnePlus plans to have a local engineering and product team, as it ramps up operations in the world’s second-largest smartphone market.

"It is something we are considering this year. We have already hired some Indian engineers and product people. So, it won’t be too long before we have a local engineering team," said CEO Pete Lau in an interview with ET on the sidelines of Web Summit’s Surge conference.

The team will likely focus on localising software for the Indian market. "Generally, a good product will be recognised by people in India as well as North America. However, when you go deeper into more details, user habits change between different regions. In that respect, localisation becomes important, especially in the software layer," Lau said.

OnePlus will increase investment in its brand in India.

"It’s never going to be like traditional marketing but we are going to invest in the community and digital marketing," Lau said. It is also focusing on local manufacturing with plans to produce in India most of the devices it will sell in the country.

In October 2015, it partnered with electronics major Foxconn to begin local assembling operations in Andhra Pradesh, with OnePlus X being the first device to be assembled at the facility.