Carl Pei, founder of smartphone maker OnePlus, has revealed that OnePlus One has surpassed the 500,000 sales mark.
Pei said that a stretch goal of selling one million units before the end of 2014 is now being pushed by the company. It may be hard to achieve, but he firmly believes it is possible.
OnePlus One, the company's flagship device, has been available since April to people who were sent an invite from the company. An advertising budget of only $300 had been allotted by the company in promoting the product through Facebook. Eventually, the company had grown through word of mouth.
"Normally when you launch a product it gets really hot in the first month, and in the second or third month, sales start to drop really fast," said Pei.
In the case of OnePlus One devices, product sales continue to grow.
OnePlus One boasts a Snapdragon 801 CPU system-on-chip and comes with 3 GB of RAM. Its quad-core CPU runs at 2.45 GHz and comes paired with the GPU of Adreno 330. It uses CyanogenMod as its operating system.
The handset sports an IPS 1080p display of 5.5 inches and a non-removable battery of 3100mAh. The 16 GB model is priced at $299 while the 64 GB version is set at $349.
Pei has promised that the handset will soon be running on Android Lollipop 90 days from its release.
With impressive specs and budget-friendly price tags, it may be difficult to imagine how OnePlus can afford to sell the handset at such price points. Sales are indeed growing but the company isn't really making a lot of money on their product.
"We're making a single-figure dollar amount on each phone," said Pei. "That's not the way we're going to make money in the future."
Pei will soon be adding accessories and the company's own software and services layer as monetizing areas in the near future.
"Accessories will be a big part of it. If we make lifestyle products or specialized accessories, I think those will do really well," said Pei. "The main shift will come when we have a few million users and start leveraging the user base by building our own software and services layer for monetization."
The company will have another limited pre-order campaign on Nov. 17. It will be interesting to note how the upcoming round will help the company reach its target of a million units sold in 2014.
