We sat down with Huawei’s Anand Narang, Marketing and Solutions Director for India, trying to understand Huawei’s gameplan for the India market.
The company’s taking some aggressive strides in the smartphone segment (Huawei Honor – read our review), and also has offerings in the data communication and cloud computing segment. Therefore, we are offered a unique insight into Huawei’s portfolio and its expectations from the market.
Following are the excerpts from our interview:
Q) Would it be fair to say that Huawei offers value for money products and aims at the entry level consumer in the market?
Ans) Huawei believes in technology leadership and innovations. Our focus has been on a portfolio of products – smart phones, data cards & tablets. In each of these product categories, we are offering a suite of latest technology, e.g., cloud features (phone finder, 16GB memory, message to send images, music, files etc.), the world’s first multi-mode 4G dongle, the world’s fastest data cards and slimmest data cards and also the world’s thinnest and fastest smart phones etc. Our focus is on delivering premium experiences to mass market, driven by our local consumer insights.
Q) Give us a brief history of Huawei as a global company and, specifically, its India operations.
Ans) Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Through our dedication to customer-centric innovation and strong partnerships, we have established end-to-end advantages in telecom networks, devices and cloud computing. We are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers by providing competitive solutions and services. Our products and solutions have been deployed in over 140 countries, serving more than one third of the world’s population. Huawei has over 110,000 employees worldwide, around 46% of whom are engaged in research and development (R&D). Its products currently serve 45 of the world’s 50 largest telecoms operators.
Q) Why should people buy Huawei’s products and services instead of your competitors?
Ans) As a global company, Huawei offers consumers a wide range of portfolio and we have suitable products for the Indian consumers. This way, we will cater to all segments ranging from affordable to premium smartphones. One of the world’s 1st Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone (Huawei Honor) was launched by Huawei. This year we will launch the slimmest smartphone (Ascend P1) and the world’s fastest phone (Ascend D Quad) to our consumers. These continuous innovations in technology have led us to become one of the noticeable brands across the globe.
Similarly, we will be launching the world’s fastest tablet Mediapad 10FHD, it’s the first tablet announced with full-HD display – 10.1 inch widescreen touchscreen with 1920×1200 pixels of resolution. The Android ICS tablet will be powered by Huawei’s new and powerful K3V2 quad-core processor and sport an 8MP rear camera and LTE as well.
Q) Throw some light on the acceptability of cloud services in the enterprise and consumer space in the Indian market, and how does Huawei plan to carve out a niche for itself in this space?
Ans) Cloud is an exclusive Huawei Cloud service to Huawei device users. Cloud offers a range of next generation features like Cloud drive, Message , Streams, Phone finder, SNS, Contacts Integration and anywhere any device access for content saved on drive. These features help the phone user to experience the future.
Cloud gives consumer 16 GB of free storage — you can store up to 3500 songs or 7000 photos. Cloud is not just a hard disk in the sky. You can backup all that you use every day and it’s always available on your Huawei Phone, Mediapad and PC.
Q) How do Huawei’s cloud services differ from other offerings in the market?
Ans) When you sign up for Cloud , you automatically get 16 GB of free storage. Since your contacts, mails, messages, camera rolls, settings and account information doesn’t use as much space, you will find that 16 GB of storage goes a long way. You can store up to 3500 songs or 7000 photos. Whereas rival cloud services offer free storage up to only 5 GB, which can store only 1000 songs or 2000 photos.
If your Huawei phone is missing, Hicloud can help you figure out where your phone is. Log on to www.hicloud.com; use the Phone finder feature to locate your phone on the Google maps. Not just locate, perform other security functions to safe guard your data from intruders
Q) Do people really buy Internet dongles all that much in India?
Ans) Huawei command 70 per cent market share in operator forward bundled data card. We sell over 3 million data cards every year. While continuing to support and work closely with operators for the 80 per cent forward bundled data cards, Huawei will also bring offerings to the remaining 20 percent consumers who need an unlocked data card who are free to choose operator & plan. Huawei will work closely with operators to offer reversed bundled data plans in the open market helping operators expand their data business.
Q) Are Indians really buying Mi-Fi USB dongles independent of a telecom provider? Is it a sustainable and profitable business in the longer run?
Ans) Broadband dongles interface has seen an evolution from PCMCIA, EXPRESS, USB and now Wi-Fi. And latest interface trend points towards easier, simpler and faster connectivity and hence MiFi devices are expected to see traction. Additionally, MiFi devices offer easy sharing of a single data connection to multiple personal devices at the same time offering today’s user the opportunity to have mobile handset, tablet, laptop all connected through the MiFi device.
Huawei in India partners with leading telecom operators to offer reverse bundled data plans for our dongles.
Q) Late last year, Huawei announced a partnership with Wikitude GmbH, an augmented reality browser. Tell us more about it…
Ans) We are extremely pleased to partner with Wikitude for this innovative application. The Wikitude World Browser will allow our users to discover what’s around them in a completely new manner Wikitude features more than 2,000 AR (augmented reality) content experiences. These aggregated content datasets add up to more than 150 million points of interest (POIs) like sights, restaurants, mobile coupons, coffee shops and Wi-Fi hotspots around the globe. Wikitude also allows users to customize the home screen according to individual’s lifestyle and preferences. The Huawei Sonic and X3 were the first handsets which came loaded with this application.
Q) Out of all the smartphones Huawei’s launched in India, which has been the most successful one and why?
Ans) Every product has some best feature. The Ideos X5 – HD video Android smartphone – was hugely successful. Huawei has now launched an upgraded and improved version of Ideos X5 with cloud features, a 1GHz faster processor, FM Radio and 14.4 Mpbs faster download speeds.
Huawei Sonic, one of the world’s first cloud phones, offers entertainment and social networking experience on a bigger and brighter display and comes with integrated social phonebook with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn via Huawei Streams.
Our understanding of Indian consumers has led us to launch Huawei Honor that features a powerful 1,900 mAh battery, giving users up to 9 hours of talk time, 6 hours of gaming and 10 hours of video – which means a common user on a single charge can have upto 3 days of talk-time. Featuring a 4”, scratch resistant Gorilla glass and FWVGA display with 245 pixels per inch (PPI) -the highest in its category, Huawei Honor can break any records in terms of contrast in its class. So it’s difficult to choose one handset out of all.
Q) After launching smartphones and tablets, what’s the next big thing on Huawei’s (Indian) horizon?
Ans) This year we will launch the world’s slimmest smartphone (Ascend P1) and the world’s fastest phone (Ascend D Quad) to our consumers. Huawei Media Pad 10 FHD is the first tablet announced with HD display – 10.1 inch widescreen touch display with 1920×1200 pixels of resolution. The Android ICS tablet will be powered by Huawei’s new and powerful K3V2 quad-core processor and sport an 8MP rear camera and LTE as well. What is exciting is that the Huawei Media Pad 10 is has included these top-notch specs in an 8.8 mm thin chassis, which is an impressive feat.
Q) One operator has already introduced 4G services in India. Your thoughts on 4G rollout in the country and when will you offer 4G dongles?
Ans) Many of the leading operators have already declared the launch of their next generation networks, which will be based on LTE. With the launch of Bharti Airtel’s 4G services, Huawei, the telecom solution provider, gets the opportunity to offer its first LTE Router B593 and LTE USB Stick E392 to the Indian customers. The company globally leads the mobile broadband and data cards segment with over 55% of market share. The entry of LTE in the technology world will definitely prove to be the right choice for a new era in mobile communication.
Q) Not a lot of people have heard of Huawei (the company and its offerings) in India. Are you guys working on creating brand awareness?
Ans) Consumers in India would not have seen much yet in the name of marketing activity from Huawei. But in terms of reaching out through digital media and retail outlets, we are still active.
At present we are increasing our channel strength. At present we are still in the process of understanding Indian customers. Once we do that, only then would it be right for us to invest money in ad-campaigns so that we have the right products distributed using the right vehicles to accompany the television commercials and print ad campaigns.
Q) What are some of the challenges faced by Huawei towards achieving their goals, especially in the Indian market?
Ans) Huawei see more opportunity in developing sustainable business model we have in India from the past 10 years, we want to understand Indian consumer’s preferences for 3G and 4G devices across smartphone / tablet / data cards. So that’s a challenge. We are also ramping our distribution to serve consumers acrossIndia in 100 plus cities and in new channels like large format retail and online. We are also educating and engaging consumers around connected experiences with our 360 touch point strategy. As we grow in the Indian market we are also increasing our service footprint and also leveraging new channels like Facebook to provide online service to our consumers.
All answers attributed to Mr. Anand Narang, Marketing and Solutions Director, India (pictured below).
