OnePlus CEO Pete Lau says it sold over 10 million smartphones globally in 2021

Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus, according to its CEO Pete Lau, has achieved the target of selling 10 million units (1 crore) globally ahead of its schedule.

Lau shared this information through an article on Weibo which talks about the eighth anniversary of the company. He mentioned that the brand has hit the target of selling 10 million units globally.

According to the article shared by Lau, this year, OnePlus fully developed its operations in the domestic market and actively explored areas related to products and marketing. OnePlus 9 series, sales exceeding 300 million yuan (approx. $47 million) in 10 seconds during the initial period of its launch. The company also launched the OnePlus 9R and 9RT smartphones in the market, covering the mid-range to upper mid-range market.

In global markets, OnePlus' global shipments increased by 257% year-on-year in the first half of 2021, with shipments to the U.S. increasing by 428% year-on-year, making it the smartphone brand with the top growth rate during the period. In Europe, OnePlus has become the smartphone brand with the highest growth rate in the second quarter of this year, with a year-on-year increase of 304%.

OnePlus in a blog post said, "Our European markets have also seen significant growth. In fact, OnePlus is officially the fastest-growing smartphone brand, among the top 5 smartphone brands in Europe, with an annual growth rate of 131% in the third quarter of 2021."

In India, OnePlus saw 29% year-on-year growth, taking a 30% market share in smartphones priced over 30,000 in the third quarter of 2021. Also, the OnePlus Community forum members grew to 11 million, with over 116 million messages sent on the platform.

The Chinese brand is now gearing up to launch the OnePlus 10 series smartphones, which are confirmed to come powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. If the reports are to be believed, then the phones will go official next month for the Chinese market while customers in other regions may have to wait till March or April.

Meanwhile, in June, OnePlus announced that it has decided to further integrate with its sister smartphone brand Oppo and merge with it in a bid to create better products. In an official forum note, earlier, Lau said that it will also allow them to be more efficient, for example, bringing faster and more stable software updates for OnePlus users.