For the second quarter in a row, according to Counterpoint, OnePlus is India’s top premium phone brand. A few months ago, Counterpoint said that OnePlus had a 40 per cent share in the premium phone market. On October 23, the research firm again noted that in Q3, 2018 OnePlus “retained its number one spot in premium smartphone market”, though it did not reveal the share figure but. For OnePlus, the success has been mostly built through its online sales. Now, it is expanding its presence in the offline market in India, and the latest in this direction is OnePlus joining hands with Reliance Digital to offer the OnePlus experience to users.

Reliance Digital and OnePlus, on October 23, announced that starting with the OnePlus 6T which launches globally on the night of October 29 and, in India on October 30th, OnePlus phones will be available in select Reliance Digital Stores so that consumers can see, touch, and try them before purchasing.

The OnePlus 6T will succeed the OnePlus 6, and it is coming with several unique features such as a fingerprint scanner, a waterdrop notch and a larger 3700 mAh battery. The new OnePlus phone is expected to look similar to the OnePlus 6, will have a metal and glass body, high-end hardware including dual-camera setup on rear, the Snapdragon 845 processor inside, and up to 8GB RAM. The OnePlus 6T is likely to have a starting price of around Rs 37,000 for the 128GB variant.

The premium smartphone segment in India is steadily growing, and OnePlus seeks to, more effectively, tap into this space, with a nifty strategy combining both online and offline platforms for a holistic reach. The focus on curating only the best user experience by Reliance Digital resonates with that of OnePlus’ user philosophy, said Vikas Agarwal, General Manager at OnePlus India.

The partnership with Reliance Digital is yet another move that OnePlus is taking to make inroads into the offline market. Earlier, it created a few company owned experience zones in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR. At the same time, it has also partnered with Croma to set up OnePlus experience zones in stores run by the company. OnePlus believes that, after its partnership with Reliance Digital, its retail footprint across the country is increasing by 50 per cent. “With Croma, we are now in over 110 stores across the country, and with this new partnership, we will have with a presence in 20 new stores, expanding across their platform across the country going forward,” said a OnePlus spokesperson.

The increased reach not only means that consumers in big cities like Mumbai and Delhi will now get a chance to see OnePlus 6T and gadgets like the newly announced Bullets USB-C earphones, but also that the consumers in cities like Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mangalore, Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Mohali and Coimbatore too will be able to see, touch and experience OnePlus products before buying them.

The OnePlus-Reliance Digital partnership comes days before the launch of the OnePlus 6T. This phone will be launched at two events: the global event in New York on October 29 and the India event in New Delhi on October 30. The OnePlus 6T, meanwhile, is already available for pre-booking through Amazon India, which is the online retail partner of the OnePlus. The OnePlus 6T is expected to go on sale in offline shops as well as online from November 2.