OnePlus was founded on 16 December 2013 by former Oppo vice-president Pete Lau and Carl Pei. According to Chinese public records, OnePlus' only institutional shareholder is Oppo Electronics.Lau denied that OnePlus was an entirely owned subsidiary of Oppo and stated that Oppo Electronics and not Oppo Mobile (the phone manufacturer) may be a major investor of OnePlus which they're "in talks with other investors", Although OnePlus has confirmed it uses Oppo's manufacturing line and shares a part of the availability chain resources with Oppo.The company's main goal was to style a smartphone that might balance high-end quality with a lower cost than other phones in its class, believing that users would "Never Settle" for the lower-quality devices produced by other companies. Lau explained that "we will never vary only for the sake of being different. Everything done has got to improve the particular user experience in day-to-day use." He also showed aspirations of being the "Muji of the tech industry", emphasizing its specialise in high-quality products with simplistic, user-friendly designs. Continuing Lau's association with the platform from the Oppo N1,OnePlus entered into an exclusive contract with Cyanogen Inc. to base its products' Android distribution upon a variant of the favoured custom ROM CyanogenMod and use its trademarks outside of China
