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Cape Town – Vodacom has announced that it will offer the Huawei Mate S smartphone at a premium price.
The operator announced on its website that the new Mate S would be sold for R529 per month on a Smart contract that includes 200MB of data.
That price puts Huawei into the premium smartphone territory of the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge which retails for R540 on Vodacom and R599 on MTN.
The Huawei phablet represents a shift from the Chinese manufacturer to a premium segment as the company drives for market share in emerging economies like South Africa.
According to data from market tracker International Data Corporation, Samsung leads the South African market with 45.2% market share, while Huawei saw its share tumble from 21% to 6.1%.
Local competition
After years of producing low-cost smartphones and white labelling devices, the company also faces an image problem among South African consumers.
"Our manufacturing facilities are some of the best in the world and this is reflected in the quality of devices we produce. However, it is a challenge to change the perception but as the leading ICT company in the world we believe we are on the road to changing this," Yudi Rambaran, Huawei director of product marketing in southern Africa recently told Fin24.
Data shows that smartphones priced at between $100 to $200 have demonstrated the highest growth but many companies strive to hang their brands on a flagship device.
Local smartphone players are also determined to capitalise on the mid-price market segment.
"We also have devices up and down the price spectrum. Our niche are devices that are better specced, better priced, extremely good-looking devices and with a large focus on value-add in the box,” said AG Mobile CEO Anthony Goodman.
