Our Green-Line Worry-Free solution is an industry-first initiative that offers lifetime warranty: Robin Liu, CEO, OnePlus India
We discuss Project Starlight and the offer of lifetime warranty to address the green line issue with Robin Liu, CEO of OnePlus India
With India being its key market and a special emphasis being laid on product quality, service and reliability, brand OnePlus seems to be on a mission. Its recently announced Project Starlight and the launch of the flagship OnePlus 13 has been grabbing headlines. We got a chance to throw a few questions at Robin Liu, CEO of OnePlus India and asked him about Project Starlight and the way forward for the brand.
Project Starlight is a big step for OnePlus as a brand. Please tell us more about it.
We have completed over 10 years in India and one of the reasons behind our success can be attributed to the unconditional support that our OnePlus community has imparted over the years. India is a key market for us, and as an entity that addresses its users’ needs at the core of its operations, we carefully listen to the challenges and suggestions shared by our community and take them very seriously. The introduction of Project Starlight is a stride towards reaffirming India as a priority market while also bringing forth necessary technology and customer-specific interventions for our community. In 2024, we committed to investing INR 2,000 crore every year till 2027 to focus on enhancing product durability, elevating customer service, and driving India-specific innovations through continuous research and development. One of the key initiatives under Project Starlight is the Green Line Worry-Free solution, an industry first where we are offering lifetime warranty to OnePlus Users on display issues like the green line issue. This policy will apply to every device we sell, from the latest OnePlus 13 to older models.
Through Project Starlight, we are dedicated to delivering cutting-edge technology, superior service, and a seamless, future-ready smartphone experience for Indian community members.
Why have you chosen India as the focus market for Project Starlight?
Our OnePlus India community and India’s burgeoning mid and premium smartphone market were the key reasons for the launch of Project Starlight. It is also important to understand that the Indian smartphone segment poses unique challenges that require timely intervention. 
For example, Indian users are among the most active smartphone consumers globally, with a strong preference for gaming, video consumption, and multitasking. Our internal data also revealed that Indian users have an average display-on time of 5.7 hours per day. This intensive usage, combined with India’s warm climate, poses challenges such as increased heat generation. To address this challenge, we are working towards enhancing heat dissipation in our devices, ensuring they maintain stable performance even during high-demand scenarios. Also, understanding the connectivity remains a concern in Indian markets, the OnePlus 13 Series is the first phone in India to deliver 5.5G connectivity. Also, a customised signal optimisation feature for Delhi Metro, ensuring smooth connectivity for commuters in addition to our Steady Connect feature extending Bluetooth connectivity up to 360 meters.
What are the investment scale and focus areas for OnePlus?
We will undertake an investment worth INR 2,000 Crores annually until 2027 to strengthen product and service offerings in India as part of Project Starlight. The Project Starlight investment focuses on three key areas – making even more durable devices, exceptional customer service, and developing India-specific features. In the coming years, we will scale our research capabilities as well as increase our after-sales network. We are elevating our research capabilities in Hyderabad to continue innovating and developing with a focus on enhancing durability, improving battery performance, and industry-wide green-line-related challenges. Also in an endeavour to come closer to our community, we are working towards strengthening our service network spanning 28 states and over 400 cities within the next 3-5 years. To further enhance our support capabilities, select flagship stores (over 100) will begin offering expanded services starting in 2025, including complimentary battery, display, and system health checks, and loaner devices amongst others.
The lifetime warranty that comes as part of your Green-Line Worry-Free solution is unheard of in this segment. At first glance, this could be perceived as crisis management. Your take on this?
Green-line is an industry-wide phenomenon and we are the first brand that introduced dedicated solutions that span across extended product warranty to tech upgrades to address this. At OnePlus, we believe in delivering not just premium products for our community but also extending a worry-free experience. Our “Green-Line Worry-Free” solution is an industry-first initiative that offers a lifetime warranty against green-line issues on all our models. Under Project Starlight, we have also upgraded our display with advanced technology. The standout advancement is the integration of the Enhanced Edge Bonding Layer, which utilises superior PVX edge-sealing materials in all OnePlus AMOLED displays.
PVX layer acts as a barrier, significantly slowing moisture and oxygen penetration over time. Additionally, we have conducted even more thorough and rigorous testing of our products in our Quality Engineering Lab. Over 180 tests have been conducted and have tested through extreme conditions to check durability even under extreme
conditions.
What’s the plan for 2025?
We are thrilled to have kicked off the year with the launch of the OnePlus13 series, as we continue to uphold our promise to give back to our community, we are excited to upscale our AI integration solutions across products and services. Our goal is to create a seamless personalised, efficient experience.
We began 2025 with the launch of our flagship OnePlus 13 series where we have 5.5G connection on our devices to make it future-ready for our consumers, a suite of meaningful AI features like Intelligent Search, AI Summary, AI Notes and more. We want our users to integrate these AI features into their day-to-day lives. We are also offering features on our OnePlus Buds Pro 3 like Steady connect for our users to have seamless integration across our ecosystem.
We will also strengthen our network of retail touchpoints across Tier-II and Tier-III cities. 2025 for OnePlus will reflect key innovations, localised features for India as well as impeccable end-to-end customer support.
