OnePlus Now Temporarily Banned from Selling Phones in India
It seems that trending smartphones aren’t easy to get their grasp on for Indian consumers. After Xiaomi, now its the Chinese device manufacturer OnePlus who has been banned by the Delhi High Court from selling, promoting or for that matter, even importing its devices on Indian soil. Thanks to Micromax, the order has come a day after the Indian manufacturer appealed to the Delhi High Court that OnePlus infringed on their India exclusive agreement with Cyanogen.
Micromax said-
We incurred major expenses for creation of a brand exclusivity for providing to Indian customers mobile phones with Cyanogen operating systems it would suffer irreparable harm and loss if the defendants (OnePlus) are permitted to continue with their illegal acts in violation of the agreement between Micromax and Cyanogen
Cyanogen had apparently signed a deal with Micromax for exclusively offering CyanogenMod OS devices in India. Owing to this exclusive agreement with Micromax, Cyanogen stated that OnePlus devices in India would not be receiving CyanogenMod updates from the company either. In addition, OnePlus One units sold in India would also be deprived of Cyanogen branding as well.
Micromax also has an exclusive license for the whole of South Asia, while OnePlus has a non-exclusive license for the entire world except China. Meanwhile, OnePlus argues that CyanogenMod informed them of the termination of their collaboration, just a fortnight before their launch in India. Cyanogen, on the other hand states that their agreement with Micromax technically cancels all prior agreements.
It will be interesting to observe whether OnePlus follows the same path of their Chinese compatriot Xiaomi, who face a similar ban.