Dubai: Smartphone manufacturer Huawei wants to muscle into the top two rankings in the Middle East and Africa region with its new offerings.
“We are capturing market share from other vendors in the region. We can clearly say that we have become a serious challenger for the top two [Samsung and Apple] players,” Sandeep Saihgal, Middle East vice-president of Huawei Consumer Business Group, told Gulf News after unveiling its Mate S handset and W1 Huawei watch in Dubai on late Wednesday.
In designing the Mate S, he said that Huawei wanted to develop a smartphone that offers a personalised experience with the power of touch.
The dual-SIM 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED device is powered by 2.2Ghz octa-core home-grown processor with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage capacity. It houses 13MP rear camera, which features a RGBW (red, green, Blue and white) sensor and optical image stabiliser, and 8MP front-facing camera with single LED flash.
Earlier this month at IFA technology show in Berlin, Huawei revealed the new pressure-sensitive technology can be used to weigh small objects by placing the object on the screen.
Saihgal said that the phone is equipped with Fingerprint 2.0, an upgraded version of the advanced chip level security and one-key unlock technology in the Huawei Mate 7. It can also be used to control the notification bar, double-click to erase unread notifications, slide to preview pictures, and hold and take phone calls.
The M8 is priced at Dh2,299 and will be available from Sunday onwards.
“We announced the Force Touch technology at IFA, Berlin, but what we are launching it here is not without Force Touch and that will come later,” Saihgal said.
Moreover, the Chinese company is bringing fashion into the smartwatch technology.
Saihgal said that people used to wear the watch in one hand even when they are using wearable devices to monitor steps, calories and sleep patterns. They couldn’t swap at that point of time.
“Last couple of years, we have seen the wearable devices not significantly growing globally and regionally. What we are trying to do is adding fashion to the technology. The idea is to merge fashion and technology to the next step and combine into one,” he said.
The company launched three models with different strap combinations with prices ranging from Dh1299 to Dh1499.
The fully circular watch features a 1.4-inch touch-sensitive AMOLED display, scratch-proof sapphire crystal lens, cold-forged stainless steel frame, and comes with a built-in heart rate monitor and 6-Axis motion sensors.
It is powered by Qualcomm 1.2GHz processor for optimal performance, includes 4GB of storage, 512MB of RAM and Bluetooth 4.1. It runs on iOS and Android platforms.
