Smart TVs herald connected experiences for Indians: OnePlus India CEO

As Smart TVs come of age, more and more Indians, especially millennial and Gen Z, are seeking connected experiences and OnePlus is targeted to bring an even more accessible connected ecosystem experience with smarter TV experience at affordable price points, the company's India CEO said on Friday.

To better serve their needs, the global brand this time decided to try a new approach wherein, it has introduced the OnePlus TV Y1S for the online consumer segment and the OnePlus TV Y1S Edge for the offline segment. The idea is "to cater to our larger India community effectively in their respective segments," Navnit Nakra, India CEO and Head of India Region, OnePlus India, told IANS.

OnePlus stepped into the smart TV segment in Q3 2019 with the launch of its Q Series in India.  "Owing to the immensely positive response to our Q Series, we went on to expand our smart TV category offerings in 2020, with the launch of OnePlus TV U Series and Y Series," informed Nakra. Both the TVs were a huge success, with the OnePlus TV Y Series (32-inch) becoming the best-selling smart TV in India in the less than Rs 30,000 price segment in Q4 2021, as per the Counterpoint research report.

Last year, the company launched the OnePlus TV U1S products as an extension to the U Series, and it went on to become the best-selling smart TV in India in greater than Rs 40,000 price bracket in Q4 2021. "In fact, OnePlus grew over an incredible 350 per cent (on-year) from 2020 to 2021 in the India smart TV segment, with the OnePlus TV Y Series serving as a major volume driver as per the Counterpoint Research report," informed Nakra.

According to him, the all-new OnePlus TV Y1S and Y1S Edge serve as an extension to the existing OnePlus TV Y Series portfolio. "The OnePlus TV Y1S and Y1S Edge deliver an intelligent and smooth connected ecosystem experience, offering unique smart features like the OnePlus Connect 2.0, seamless IoT connectivity to the other OnePlus devices such as the OnePlus Buds and OnePlus Watch, Smart Manager feature, Gaming mode and much more," Nakra told IANS.

The 'Remote Diagnosis' tool delivers a new way to reliably identify and resolve any service issues remotely. In case of any potential issue, the OnePlus service team will be able to remotely access the smart TV to configure solutions. The OnePlus TV Y1S will be available across online platforms starting at Rs 16,499 and OnePlus TV Y1S Edge will be available across offline channels from Rs 16,999 onwards, respectively.

"Although both variants largely have very similar features and the exact same software experience, the OnePlus TV Y1S has been designed keeping in mind that the online consumers tend to be more of the value-seeker segment," Nakra said. The offline consumers tend to mostly make family purchases with smart TVs.

Considering this aspect, the company included features in the Y1S Edge like slightly higher audio capacity and eTUV Rheinland' certification, offering vision protection which are slightly enhanced additions in Y1S Edge. The company has also introduced eNord CE 2' smartphone that includes "fast charge, OOS 11, a great camera, a big battery and 90Hz AMOLED display".

"We have also brought headphone jack to Nord CE 2 to add a little more versatility.eNord CE 2 also comes up with an extra SD card slot, so users can expand the storage up to 1TB," said Nakra. OnePlus Nord CE 2 5G will be available in two storage variants, in India. The 6GB 128GB model is priced at Rs 23,999 and the 8GB 128GB at Rs 24,999.