CYANOGEN ENDS PARTNERSHIP WITH ONEPLUS; LOOKING FOR BIGGER CHINESE VENDORS

When OnePlus unveiled it first smartphone ‘OnePlus One’ in 2014, many of us called it as a flagship killer because of the specs what OnePlus offered for a $300 device competing with other flagships devices priced double to it. OnePlus may not have got that much attention if it had not come with a Cyanogen ROM. But now, Cyanogen has decided to move away from their partnership with OnePlus since they are looking to partner with other Chinese brands that are looking to expand globally.

“Without Cyanogen, OnePlus would have sold like one device in international markets,” McMaster said in an interview. Earlier OnePlus announced their custom ROM ‘Oxygen OS’ but the company said devices outside India will be getting the official Cyanogen updates since they had an exclusive deal with Micromax in India. In Global Mobile Internet Conference, which held yesterday Cyanogen CEO Mc Master made statement

Cyanogen is hoping to partner with Chinese companies that are looking for global expansion. Since they around 100 smartphone brands in China, some of them are looking to expand outside the China. These are much bigger companies than OnePlus, which shipped nearly 1 million devices to the end of 2014. “OnePlus shipped reasonable volume, but nothing compared to what some of these other partners can ship,” McMaster said. “So we are working with partners that can scale much quicker.”

It will be a huge boost for Cyanogen if they can get few brands to release Cyanogen OS with their devices. Recently, Cyanogen announced a partnership with Microsoft to offer services from Microsoft along with their OS.