The OnePlus One is being sold at cost

With a 5.5-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 801, 64GB of storage and a 13-megapixel camera, you have to wonder just how much money OnePlus could possibly be making on the insanely cheap OnePlus One. Well, according to OnePlus CEO Peter Lau, they’re not making anything.

In an interview with TechRadar, Lau was quoted as saying that OnePlus is “selling the phone at cost.” The CEO went on to say, “We are able to do that by redistributing our costs to better benefit the user.” If OnePlus truly isn’t making any money on the One, it makes us wonder just how long the company can keep business moving forward.

With its Nexus series of devices, Google comes as close to selling at cost as comfortable, but it does so with the knowledge that they will make money through Google Play. Exactly how OnePlus plans to make money when it doesn’t offer any paid content or services remains a mystery. Many software startups have taken the approach of getting their business started and worrying about revenue later, but hardware ventures are a different story.

If you appreciate what OnePlus is trying to do to the industry — bringing affordable, high-end hardware with compelling software to as many people as possible — you’d better support them while you can. How do you think OnePlus could make enough money to keep making phones? Let us know in the comments.

source: androidandme