Dubai: Huawei, the main competitor to Apple and Samsung, is keen to boost its brand image and increase its market share.
The Chinese manufacturer is the world’s third largest after Samsung and Apple and holds 6.9 per cent market share as of second quarter of this year.
“We have grown more than 95 per cent year-on-year globally. We doubled our numbers across the region. Our strategy, right from the beginning, was to offer the right value to the end users. We don’t want the end users to pay for nothing,” Ashraf Fawakherji, vice-president of Huawei Device Middle East, told Gulf News after unveiling its six-inch Ascend Mate 7 and five-inch Nancy Ajram edition of Ascend P7 in Dubai on Wednesday evening.
Huawei announced Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram as its Middle East and North African brand ambassador for 2015.
The single piece aluminium construction of the Mate 7 resemble HTC One (M8) with a screen resolution of 368 pixels per inch density.
It is powered by octa-core in-house processor and supports LTE category 6 with a download speed of 300mbps. It houses 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage capacity and supports microSD slot. The rear houses a 13MP camera and 5MP front facing camera. Huawei has not fixed the prices of the phones.
“We have minimised the bezel to give more screen area with an 83 per cent screen-to-body ratio. The side bezels are only 2.9mm with 7.9mm thick with slight curvature on the back edges. It weighs only185 grams,” said Fawakherji.
As fingerprint scanner is gaining traction with Apple, Huawei is also following suit after Samsung and HTC.
He added that the fingerprint scanner at the back sits below the camera and users don’t need to swipe their fingers, they just need to place their fingers on the scanner to unlock the phone as there is no button to unlock it.
Huawei entered the mobile phone market in 2010 and has shipped 64.2 million devices in the first half of this year.
In the first year, it shipped three million devices and then shipped 20 million in 2011, 32 million in 2012 and 52 million last year.
The company expects to sell 90 million smartphones this year but it faces a crowded group of potential competitors within striking distance, especially LG and Lenovo.
With LTE category 6, he said that a 1GB video can be downloaded in 30 seconds.
Nancy Ajram said that she is actually a big fan of technology and like to have the latest smart devices with the best features.
“I have been aware of Huawei’s smartphone’s in the region for years and was happy to become a brand ambassador for such an ambitious and fast growing smartphone company coming up with elegant and innovative devices,” she said.
