After 2 years of “comeback”, what is the fate of OnePlus in Vietnam now?

After nearly 2 years of returning to the Vietnamese market, the OnePlus brand has failed to impress Vietnamese users. Up to now, this brand has almost disappeared from the Vietnamese market. Community activities are no longer maintained, and the official fanpage and group no longer have any other activities, leaving many people wondering about OnePlus’ fate in the Vietnamese market.

Once dubbed the “flagship killer”, OnePlus’ new orientation in the past few years has made many people turn away from this brand, including Vietnamese users. There are 3 main reasons leading to the sad end of OnePlus and all 3 of these reasons stem from subjective factors.

Changing orientation, no longer a low-cost high-configuration flagship

Since its inception in late 2013, OnePlus has had a different orientation compared to most smartphone brands in the market. The company only focuses on developing high-end smartphones, with high configuration but cheap prices like mid-range smartphones. It is because of this that many users give OnePlus smartphones the nickname “flagship killer”, which means flagship destroyer. Even later on, OnePlus advertised itself as a “flagship killer” smartphone line.

However, this orientation of OnePlus does not last long when in 2020, OnePlus plans to return to the Vietnamese market after many years of absence. Two smartphones introduced by OnePlus in Vietnam in this “comeback” are OnePlus 8 Pro, a high-end smartphone, and OnePlus Nord, a mid-range smartphone.

Notably, the selling price of OnePlus 8 Pro and OnePlus Nord in Vietnam is VND 24 million and VND 14 million, respectively, a price many times higher than the expected price and makes OnePlus lose its ever-present nature. Compared to the OnePlus X launched in Vietnam in 2016 for VND 4.9 million, now OnePlus is no longer a cheap, powerful smartphone brand.

Young brand, high price makes it harder to compete in Vietnam

One of the big reasons why it is difficult for OnePlus to gain market share in Vietnam is about branding. OnePlus is a relatively young brand, the approach to users is also relatively unique when it is almost only known by those who are knowledgeable about technology.

After the “comeback” of the Vietnamese market, the orientation to capture the high-end and mid-range segments is even more difficult when these are two extremely difficult segments to compete with. In the high-end segment, OnePlus has no door compared to Samsung and Apple, even OPPO can hardly compete, let alone a brand that almost no one knows about.

In the mid-range segment, OnePlus continues to face rivals such as Samsung’s Galaxy A series, OPPO’s Reno series. These are two product lines that Samsung and OPPO spend a lot of money on marketing. OnePlus at this time has only appeared in Vietnam and faced many difficulties in terms of competition. The OnePlus Nord itself does not have any outstanding elements to attract users while having a price as high as 14 million.

Limited distribution channel, continues to be a barrier of OnePlus

At the time OnePlus announced its return to the Vietnamese market, the brand made a confusing decision to exclusively distribute two OnePlus 8 Pro and OnePlus Nord devices at the Mobile World retail system. The exclusivity period lasts until the end of the product life cycle, which means that users have only one channel to buy goods, namely Mobile World resellers. Mobile World is an agent that does not apply the “deduct gift” policy, which means that users are forced to buy the device at the listed price and receive additional gifts, not a partial discount of the selling price if they do not take the gift. bonus.

The limited distribution channel is a huge barrier for OnePlus when it first entered the Vietnamese market. This makes it very difficult for users to access OnePlus products, unlike OPPO or Samsung, which are distributed in many different retail systems to make it easier to reach users.

The proof is that later when the OnePlus 8T was introduced and sold exclusively at Mobile World for VND 19 million, this device Received only… 16 orders after one week of opening. This can be considered as a failure of OnePlus in the Vietnamese market.

What is the fate of OnePlus in Vietnam now?

Used to be a partner of the Mobile World system, but at the present time, this system no longer sells any OnePlus product lines. The models included in the exclusive plan have also been discontinued. After ending the exclusive plan with Mobile World, OnePlus switched to cooperating with the Cellphone system

Refer to the CellphoneS system, 3 models of OnePlus 8T, OnePlus Nord CE and OnePlus Nord N10 are currently being distributed exclusively at this system.

On OnePlus’ official fanpage in Vietnam, this page has also been inactive since the middle of last year. The last article about OnePlus Nord CE was posted from July 2021.

According to Mr. Nguyen Lac Huy, representative of CellphoneS system, OnePlus Vietnam operates under the control of OPPO Vietnam. This system is also the exclusive distribution partner of OnePlus products in Vietnam. Mr. Huy also revealed that in 2022, OnePlus plans to bring a few new models to the Vietnamese market, but there is no information on which products.

In the near future, if OnePlus continues to operate in the Vietnamese market with the old orientation, this brand will need to make certain changes to be able to reach more users, especially in terms of price. as well as the distribution channel, because these are the two factors that most influence the success of OnePlus in the Vietnamese market.

https://genk.vn/sau-2-nam-comeback-so-phan-oneplus-tai-viet-nam-gio-ra-sao-20220328120409047.chn