OnePlus announced that it has approximately doubled the availability of its OnePlus One smartphone to 35 countries, by adding 16 new European ones. However, before you get too excited, customers will only be able to purchase it in those markets through the controversial invite system or during the 24-hour open sales every Tuesday.
The company has been growing rapidly lately, from only 30 employees initially to over 700 now, and it has expanded to India and Indonesia after its initial seven countries. The new 16 European countries are: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
“We know it has taken some time to get here. But it is important for us to do things right rather than do them fast," said OnePlus on its blog. “We took time to build a network that could support the extra logistics and needs of users before making this next step. After months of hard work, we're confident we can provide a top notch experience for users in all European Union countries."
The exact models these countries will get are the Silk White 16 GB version, which will cost 269 euro, and the Sandstone Black 64 GB version, which will cost 299 euro.
The popularity of the OnePlus One device grew initially thanks to high-end specs for half the price of what other companies would charge for similar features, and also because the device used Cyanogen's operating system.
In the past few months, the two companies have cut their ties, and now OnePlus is preparing to launch its Oxygen OS, which looks quite a bit different than the Cyanogen OS. Some customers may respond negatively to an operating system that is significantly different than stock Android or than their current Cyanogen.
On the other hand, most of OnePlus One's customers are interested in the device's higher value compared to other smartphones out there, so as long as the company can afford to do that, the brand should become stronger and the sales should increase.
OnePlus' co-founder, Carl Pei, will be hosting an event this week in Warsaw, Prague and Budapest, where he will talk about the launch of the device in the European countries, demo it, and give a sneak peak at the Oxygen OS. He will also announce OnePlus' entrance into a new product category, as well as talk about the launch of the OnePlus 2 in the third quarter of this year.
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