Nipun Marya, director of brand strategy at Vivo India, which competes with OnePlus in this segment, agrees that consumer experience plays a big role, from “buying the device, after-sales service, loyalty programmes and the entire purchase cycle”.

In the past 12-18 months, a lot of people buying older iPhones have shifted to the new OnePlus, Pathak says. While he doesn’t have a figure, Lau claims that “over 20% of the new OnePlus users have come over from Apple products”. That could be very true if one goes by Apple’s performance in China where local manufacturers such as Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo have edged past the U.S. giant.

In India, the premium segment numbers reveal the impact of the OnePlus. Pathak says the segment had been expanding in double digits, but for a fall in growth last year when it grew only 3% because of a plunge in Apple’s sales. “[But] if you take OnePlus out of the equation, the category would have actually declined by 13%,” he says. And in 2017, the category grew by 43%, but without OnePlus, the growth was only 16%.

Pricing has definitely been key to the success of the OnePlus in India. But there are other factors. The simplicity of its technology is a big draw both with India’s millennials and the not-so-tech-savvy middle-aged Indians. The lag-free, simple interface of its phones, which run a long time on a single charge, seem to be big draws. Lau says for OnePlus, its approach is to make “the best possible flagship product”. “Every detail, no matter how small, matters at OnePlus,” adds co-founder Carl Pei, 29. “The underlying product philosophy for us is what we call the burdenless experience; which means that every time we talk about using the smartphone, you should not get burdened by technology,” Agarwal explains.

Unlike their peers Oppo, vivo, and Huawei, OnePlus and Xiaomi had Indians as the face of the company in the country, so customers started associating with the brand, Pathak explains. Lau agrees, saying they built a local team and empowered them to take decisions for the region. In fact, Pathak says some respondents to their surveys don’t know that OnePlus is a Chinese brand. Agarwal says India was the first market where the company built a local team. “And today we have 15 offices in different regions worldwide. Each of these offices is built based on the learnings in the Indian market, which is at a much more advanced stage of development.” Lau says unlike other companies, they didn’t offer multiple devices at various price points in India, but instead focussed on a single model for the country. It persisted in delivering a world-class product at a single price point, despite India’s diversity, Lau says.

Experts believe the OnePlus strategy in India could serve as a blueprint for other regions. OnePlus should do well to apply the India playbook to other regions, says Counterpoint’s Pathak. “The feedback you get on your products is very distinctive because users [in India] are very aware of what they are buying,” he says. “Any brand which can carve a space so quickly in the premium end of the market in a highly value-conscious market like India [where 80%- plus of the smartphone market is still below $200 and 45%-plus of the mobile phone market is still feature phones], can definitely use all these experiences to replicate anywhere else in the world,” says Navkendar Singh, research director at IDC India, which tracks the sector.

Pathak says India—where one-third of its total users reside—is critical to OnePlus and it has little margin for error as the company launches only one or two models a year. IDC’s Singh adds that the company’s success in India will define its “long-term ambitions and fortunes globally, considering the huge potential India presents and also India being the only market of its size to be growing in double digits”. Now, OnePlus is looking to increase its market share in the U.S.—Apple’s home turf. Till recent times, OnePlus had not been available through network operators, the popular means of procuring a phone in the U.S. Now, T-Mobile is offering the OnePlus 6T. “T-Mobile and OnePlus customers had repeatedly asked us to partner—even tweeting at T-Mobile’s CEO, John Legere, directly! So, we do what we always do: listen and deliver,” says a T-Mobile spokesperson.

But what does the user, the person at the centre of OnePlus’ efforts to deliver a “burdenless” experience, have to say? Romit Dasgupta, a Bengaluru-based senior analyst with a multinational, is sticking to his OnePlus 5. “It’s been two years and there’s been no degradation in performance,” he says. “Because of the developer community, even though OnePlus One is not receiving updates anymore, I now have Android Nougat on my OnePlus One and I’m still using it,” says Karan Gupta, a video developer, who picked up his phone in the U.S. before it launched in India.

While its online play lets OnePlus reach a wider crowd, Agarwal says there’s a need for offline stores for those who are not comfortable shopping online, or want to see the device first before buying it online. Before its offline play, OnePlus used to organise pop-up events. Seeing the good response, OnePlus decided to open experience stores. Another decision is OnePlus’ promise to return phones in an hour at service centres, where there’s free coffee and Wi-Fi for customers.