OnePlus launches flagship 3T with eye on foreign markets

OnePlus 3T is on display during the product's China launch event held in Beijing, Nov 29, 2016. [Photo by Liu Zheng/chinadaily.com.cn]

Statistics from industry consulting company International Data Corporation (IDC) show that India's smartphone shipments clocked 32.3 million units in the third quarter of this year, with 17.5 percentage growth over the previous quarter.

Lenovo Group continued to lead online channel sales, followed by Xiaomi. "Lenovo Group accounts for almost one-fourth of total online smartphone shipments driven primarily by Lenovo's K5 series and Motorola's G4 series models. Also, Xiaomi's Redmi Note 3 and newly launched Redmi 3S fuelled the online shipments to a large extent," said Karthik J, senior market analyst of IDC India's client devices division.

James Yan, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, said that "Lenovo's success in India was due to the company's distribution channels set up to sell its laptops." He added that ZTE's global strategy for terminals is targeted at some of the core cities in a country while Huawei tends to adopt a more "all-round" development approach.

According to The Times of India newspaper, Pete Lau said the company is projected to capture the Indian market, which is expected to be the second biggest growth sector after China in the shipments of smartphone sales in the coming years.

The paper said OnePlus will soon finalize the location for a manufacturing plant in India and also launch a brick-and-mortar experience center in Bengaluru.

Jin Di, research manager at IDC China, told China Daily that intellectual property rights protection, bilateral relations established between China and local governments and local regulations and laws on foreign direct investment are all have influence on domestic brands that expand their wings into foreign market.

"Southeast Asia is one of the markets that have been welcomed most by the domestic companies as there is a low entry threshold," said Jin.