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Huawei eyes SA growth with Mate 7 flagship

Cape Town - The Huawei Mate 7 represents a new strategy to target South African consumers as the company looks to accelerate its market share in the country and continent.

The launch of the dual SIM flagship from the Chinese company is a new assault on rival flagships as Huawei moves to shake up the market with a premium device at lower cost than some competitors.

But whereas the telecoms giant was content to produce white labelled devices in the past, it has been on a mission to build its brand awareness.

"If you look at the South African market, Huawei has invested heavily in the branding awareness especially with sponsorship", Huawei managing director for the Device Business Group Peter Hu told Fin24.

He said that the sponsorship with Ajax Cape Town would soon be expanded as the company tells its brand story.

Growth market

"Huawei smartphone is growing quite quickly in South Africa and the August market share was 11%," said Hu.

The brand strategy has paid off to some degree in China where Huawei and others have eaten into Samsung's market share.

The South Korean giant has vowed to respond to market conditions and has narrowed its focus in developing markets like Africa.

But Huawei is determined to make SA and Africa its next growth market.


Peter Hu says that the dual SIM Mate 7 is ideal for a growing African market. (Duncan Alfreds, Fin24)

"By the end of the year, the shipment for South Africa will be close to one million pieces, and we want to double this number in the next year", said Hu.

It may be difficult to imagine that the major network operators will range a device that has dual SIM because these types of devices are not typically acceptable to local providers.

Microsoft failed to get the now-discontinued X-series into consumer hands in part because the budget smartphones were not available from major distributors.

Battery power

Hisense has also struggled to have its dual SIM smartphones in stores, though the company has nailed down some retail partnerships.

"Huawei brand awareness in South Africa is 58, which is double last year. We are looking to the future, besides our sponsorship, we'll do more digital marketing to provide opportunities for consumers to experience Huawei products," said Hu.

Like the Samsung flagship, the 15.2cm Mate 7 has a rear fingerprint reader has is able to read a fingerprint in any direction, the phone sports an "instant-on" 13 megapixel camera and it is powered by a nine (yes, nine) core processor unit.

Under the skin, Huawei has done some network optimisation trickery to conserve battery power in the 185g device.

Pricing for the Mate 7 is unclear, but Huawei is hoping that South Africans will show love to an alternative brand experience, said Hu.

"We would like to give South African consumers more opportunity to experience it."

Watch Peter Hu going through the features of the Mate 7 in this video.



- Follow Duncan on Twitter

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