Dubai: Huawei’s Honor brand, which is launching its flagship device - Huawei Honor 8 – in Paris on Wednesday (7pm Dubai time) is targeting price-conscious millennial buyers with premium specs.
The world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer, after Samsung and Apple, entered the US market with this launch last week in bid to eat into the top two firms’ market share. The device is also available in the Chinese market.
The Chinese firm will be launching the device in the Middle East on September 1 with a price tag of Dh1,599.
“The economic slowdown and low oil prices are a boon and an opportunity for us as people will prefer to buy mid-range devices rather than premium devices to save money,” said Chris Sun, vice-president of online sales at Huawei Middle East.
Huawei became the fourth smartphone vendor in history to ship over 100 million smartphones in a year (preceded only by Nokia, Samsung and Apple) to 106.6 million units in 2015, registering a growth of 44.3 per cent.
The company sold 30.6 million devices globally in the second quarter of this year with a market share of 8.9 per cent, according to research firm Gartner. Apple had a market share of 12.9 per cent and Samsung had 22.3 per cent.
Out of the top 12 smartphone rankings, nine are held by Chinese firms apart from Samsung, Apple and LG.
The company, which started as an online brand, is focusing on offline sales this year to boost volume.
Sun said that by listening to our end-users and paying attention to the smallest details, Huawei Honor have taken the holistic approach and created something truly distinctive.
The sleek 5.2-inch device with a glass back and a metal frame, similar to Samsung Galaxy 7, is powered by a home-grown octa-core Kirin 950 processor, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage capacity. It houses two 12MP cameras at the rear and an 8MP camera in the front. The back of the device also contains the fingerprint reader.
Huawei says the 2.5-D glass body with 3D grate design contains 15 layers that refract light to make the case change colour and produce an aurora effect with intricate patterns.
Sun said the device’s 3,000mAh battery with Smart Power 4.0 maximises stand-by time allowing the device to keep going for up to 1.22 days of heavy usage. Just ten minutes of charging will allow two hours call time, and 30 minutes will re-charge the device to 47 per cent.
He said the brand is confident of doubling its global sale volume to 80 million units and revenue to $12 billion (Dh44 billion) this year.
“Huawei’s increased brand visibility overseas, and its decision to sell almost only smartphones, gave it a higher average selling price in 2015,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at research firm Gartner.
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 this year and will focus on mid-range devices. 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 premium experience,” Sun said.
Among the smartphone segment, the real and cut-throat competition is taking place in the mid-range from the likes of Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo.
“The 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,” Sun said.
“We achieved more than $150 million in revenue in the region last year, and around one million units from the Gulf states. We may not be able to double our sales volume in the region but our revenue will double as the average selling price is going higher,” he said.
