Dubai
Huawei’s sub-brand Honor, which has sold 120 million smartphones since entering the market in 2014, doesn’t want to sit on the laurels it has achieved in the last three years and is hungry for more.
When Huawei sold 139 million units globally in 2016, Honor contributed 60 million devices.
In an exclusive chat with Gulf News, Chris Sun Baigong, vice-president, of Huawei Honor Middle East, said: “2017 will be a challenging year but we see a positive impact as it will give an alternate window for Honor to grow as many more brands are expected to disappear from the market.”
The year started on a positive note for the Chinese manufacturer with the launch of an affordable dual-camera phone — 6X — and Baigong said that it is well appreciated in the market and doing very good sales.
“Our last year’s flagship Honor 8 is still witnessing good sales globally and Honor Magic in China. In the Middle East, it was Honor 5X and Honor 8. It is difficult to compare 2016 sales to 2015 as we had cut some models,” he said.
In 2014, Honor launched three models and in 2015, it was two models — Honor 5X and Honor 8.
Comparing 5X to 4X, he said that the company registered more than 800 per cent growth and the flagship Honor 8 grew 300 per cent compared to Honor 7.
“Overall, the growth for 2016 was 20 per cent in the region (GCC, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan). We sold more than one million devices in 2016 and expect to sell two million units this year,” he said.
Huawei wants to surpass Apple and become the second largest brand within a year or two, according to Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group.
According to data released by Counterpoint, global smartphone shipments grew three per cent on year to 1.512 billion units in 2016.
Smartphone shipments in the China market expanded six per cent year on year to an all-time high of 465 million in 2016.
Chinese brands such as Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Meizu and Gionee drove the majority of the volume, capturing a combined 58 per cent of China’s smartphone market in 2016.
A per the IDC report, the Honor sub-brand and Huawei’s flagship P series got in the majority of sales in markets like China and parts of Asia.
Baigong said that it is good that Chinese players are stealing the limelight globally and they will play a very big role in the smartphone industry.
“We are looking at breaking norms and showing our users that premium quality is now within their reach. This is particularly so due to the predominance of digital natives and high incidence of early adopters that impact the way in which we approach this highly sophisticated market.
“For 2017, we are looking forward to bringing more devices that meet and exceed users’ expectations,” he said.
With heavy saturation in many mature smartphone markets such as the US, Europe, and China, Anthony Scarsella, research manager at IDC, said that many vendors have placed a renewed focus on pushing “premium-looking mid-tier” devices as a new value proposition to consumers in both developed and emerging markets.
And that is what Honor brand is focusing on with its premium-looking mid-range devices at an affordable price point.
“We are not going to sell devices in the low end and will focus on mid-range devices between $200 and $350. We found out that our target audience is looking at not just a price competitive nice phone but one that demonstrates best in class quality and a premium experience,” Baigong said.
He said that mid-range devices are occupying more market share but we are not considering the entry of other Chinese brands seriously.
“Our focus is to change the smartphone game and we know the market much better than other vendors and we localise it,” he said.
