Companies
06/10/2017

Huawei Has A Long Way To Go To Achieve Its Target To Overthrow Samsung And Apple In India




A senior executive of Huawei said this week that India is a major strategic market for Chinese smartphone maker.
 
The company has been able to make sizable investments and form key partnerships in the telecommunications sector in the near two-decade presence of the company in the country, said Jay Chen, CEO at Huawei India.
 
"We really believe India is one of the most important strategy market in Huawei's global layout," Chen said at the sidelines of the Indian Economic Summit in New Delhi. He added that the company has played a "more and more important role in the India market," and that it has "many strategic partnerships with the India telecom industry."
 
Its consumer business is still trying to carve a place in India's massive smartphone market even though the company may have deep ties to the telecoms business.
 
for the second quarter of 2017, by smartphone shipment number to India, Samsung was the market leader, according to Counterpoint Research. Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO and Lenovo (which includes its Motorola business) follows the South Korean giant as smartphone players in India.
 
Huawei is of the view that it's absence among the top five smartphone vendors in India is notable. The company has very high ambitions to usurp both Samsung and Apple and it is currently the third-largest smartphone vendor by shipments in the world.
 
However, most research firms are yet to reveal September-quarter data on smartphone shipments by volume, both globally and locally.
 
With a 5.9-inch display, 4GB of RAM and dual front and dual rear cameras, the Honor 9i smartphone was introduced as a new handset in the country on Thursday by Huawei. Priced at about 17,999 rupees ($275.91), the model will be sold exclusively on Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart according to reports.
 
A target of capturing 10 percent market share in the Indian smartphone segment by the end of the year has been reportedly set earlier this year by Huawei despite the competition.
 
Channels have been developed and partnerships have been formed with e-commerce platforms by Huawei already, Chen said. "In the last couple of years, Huawei's [been] one of the pioneers to do business on the e-commerce platform, especially for the smartphone business," he said.
 
Many of the Indian customers tend to purchase electronic gadgets from sites like Flipkart or Snapdeal and the e-commerce push is likely a bid to raise Huawei's profile among Indian consumers.
 
In order to develop India's 5G (fifth-generation mobile networks) ecosystem, Huawei's telecommunications business is also working with other telecoms and partners.
 
For a new research and development campus in Bangalore that can house up to 5,000 engineers, in 2015, Huawei said it was investing $170 million. It was going to start manufacturing smartphone locally, the company also announced last year.
 
(Source:www.cnbc.com) 

Christopher J. Mitchell
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