Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster commented on company plans to target the international market by opening up new partnerships with vendors. McMaster also spoke about the OnePlus One, which launched in multiple markets with the Cyanogen Mod pre-installed.

" Without Cyanogen, OnePlus would have sold like one device in international markets. Essentially they built their brand on the back of Cyanogen."

While no one can deny CyanogenMod (and included features of the OS) played a major part in the launch and subsequent selling of the OnePlus One, OnePlus also aggressively priced its smartphone and utilized an invite-only system to help with marketing. It worked as the company reported close to 1 million OnePlus Ones were sold last year.

It hasn't been smooth sailing with OnePlus and a number of issues have arisen between the two companies. OnePlus has even gone as far as releasing an in-house developed operating system for its smartphone, called Oxygen OS so the company can release updates faster without having to wait for a third-party.

"OnePlus shipped reasonable volume, but nothing compared to what some of these other partners can ship. So we are working with partners that can scale much quicker."

McMaster and Cyanogen certainly have ambitions, but we'll have to see how they can work with Chinese vendors to further expand its userbase.

Source: PC World