Huawei aims at Uniqueness and Difference

Anand Narang
Director - Marketing
Huawei Devices India

How do you see the competition in the Indian market?

Huawei believes in technology leadership and innovations. As a company, we always believe in giving something unique and different to our customers. Our innovations in mobile phone will enable billions of people worldwide to enjoy more of what life has to offer. In this increasingly dynamic and competitive environment, our challenge is to achieve this. 

How are you placing your handsets amidst the competition both established and domestic handset importers?

Last year, we proved it with cloud+ feature on our affordable smartphone (Sonic and Ideos X3) and the world’s first Android Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone (Honor). This year, we will give the world’s slimmest smartphone (Ascend P1) and the world’s fastest phone (Ascend D Quad) to our consumers. These continuous innovations in technology have led us to become one of the noticeable brands across the globe.

What market share would you be targeting by the end of CY 2012?

It would be too early to talk about the market share. Huawei started its journey in the Indian open market in late 2011, and we were able to ramp up our distribution to 32 cities and 2,500 key outlets. Our aim is to reach 200 cities and 20,000 outlets by the end of this year. We are also available in leading large format retail like Croma, Reliance, Ezone, etc. We have also expanded our alternate distribution set-up by tying up with India’s largest ecommerce portal like Tradus, Flipkart, letsbuy and others. We are targeting 15-per cent market share by the third year of business operation. In data card, we are already number one worldwide and in India.

How are you addressing the after-sales service network? 

We have service network in all the tier A/B/C cities in India. We provide service support to all the customers. And also we have call centres to address customers’ queries over phone to guide them properly (referring to call centre nearby for small technical problems).

How many handset models do you have at present and what is your current market share?

At present, we have four smartphones and we have recently launched three feature phones that have been launched in the Indian open market. In addition to handsets, we have also recently launched open market 3G HSUPA Data cards under the Huawei brand. We have a strong lineup of devices in the smartphone, feature phones and data card categories for 2012. At this moment, since we are a new entrant in the market we are currently gunning for increasing our WOD (width of distribution) and would target 15% market share by 2016.

How do you position yourself in the market today?

Our products are targeted at all age groups (youth/ young working professionals/ enterprises), who are ready to explore more when it comes to the latest in technology. Today, the choice is very limited for the smartphone category. We would be providing choice, with much to offer in terms of technology to such customers. Our strategy is very clear – it is to provide the best of technology at a reasonable price and features like Cloud+ and Message+.

As of now, there are limited players in the smartphone segment. And more entrant from Feature Phones category have limitations with respect to access to technology and integrating it with the requirements of the target segment.

Please throw some light on some of the new technology that Huawei’s mobiles have adopted.

Huawei brings the latest and relevant technology in all its devices across all its price points for Indian consumers. For example, Huawei cloud+ with 16GB net drive to store 1,000 of images, phone finder to locate and backup phone. Huawei streams for integrated social networking updates; smart sensors for battery conservation better web experience; world’s first 3G hot spot in a 3G feature phone and receive diversity for reception in fringe areas.