By Gerard Ramos / Lifestyle & Entertainment Editor
IN February, the networking and telecommunications giant Huawei emerged from the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, as the darling of the tech media with its newest twin smartphone flagships, the P10 and P10 Plus, collecting a lion’s share of “Best in MWC” plums.
It was a solid showing for the global Chinese brand, which has been gathering strength since its Ascend P6 wowed the media and consumers when it was released in 2013. Since then, Huawei has overtaken more established and exceedingly well-funded players in the smartphone space, taking the No. 3 spot in ranking in terms of global market share. Given the rousing reception its latest flagships garnered, that market share is only bound to expand some more. (We will be reviewing the Huawei P10 Plus soon enough.)
With the P10 and P10 Plus now coming to market, with an exclusive postpaid offering from Globe Telecoms, Alex Lin, Southern Pacific Region president of the Huawei Consumer Business Group, sat down with us for a chat about all things Huawei—from the secrets to its success, its partnership with legendary German imaging specialist Leica, market opportunities and more.
Lin has been with Huawei for 12 years, first as Mobile Solution Manager in 2005 before taking on other roles of increasing prominence in the company, most notably as global director of the Huawei Consumer Business Group Elite Strategy Team from 2013 to 2016.
Here are excerpts from the interview.
According to data released by leading analyst firms Strategy Analytics and Counterpoints Research, Huawei is now among the top three smartphone brands in terms of global market share. It is No. 2 or 3?
Number 3. Globally, Apple is still No. 1, followed by Samsung, then Huawei.
From the point of view of consumers, itwould seem like Huawei came out of nowhere, and then suddenly, it’s No. 3—overtaking other brands that have been there long before you arrived in the scene, and also this, despite being not all that aggressive in the smartphone business just three or four years ago.
Yes. It all started with Huawei P6, then P8 and now P10.
These were your breakthrough devices. Was all that according to plan?
Yes. Our sales for smartphones really went up (with those models). As you may remember, this was the time of the Snowden issue. (Edward Snowden was the former CIA employee who exposed the US government’s massive and covert surveillance of Americans and just about everybody else.) This was a time when people wanted a stronger smartphone with better security. This was the time of the Mate 7. It just came at the right time. It was secured, it had a great design. It became appealing to people first in China, then overseas.
Before Huawei’s rise in terms of smartphone-market share, there have been well-established players in the Android space, like LG, Samsung, Motorola, many players. Huawei has overtaken all but one of those players. Where do you attribute the company’s success?
I think the top reason is Richard Yu, the global president of our Huawei Consumer Group. Since his launch (in 2015 of the P8 series) in London, consumers have seen that our smartphones are experiential products. Our real focus is the smartphone experience. We’re not really looking into market share when we make our phones. We invest in our product—our development of the technology, the design, the camera, the materials, all those things we may not have been so good at, we enhanced those technologies within those five years. Second, we made Huawei a brand known to people. We have been in the technology business for 10 years, but no one actually knew us until a few years ago.
Is it still problematic for a Chinese brand like Huawei to gain carrier partnerships in the North American and European markets?
The market is very open. We haven’t seen anything really negative. The US market is a very strong operational power, and it’s a very dominant market. It’s a market that’s not easy to get into but once you get in, then you’ll keep moving. We have done a very good job from the beginning. Our revenue last year was $1 billion from North America alone.
In America there are many operators compared to the Philippines, with only Globe Telecom and Smart Communications, very few.
How was Huawei able to overcome the early challenges compared to other Chinese brands like Xiaomi and Oppo?
They’re both good. (Laughs) Oppo started with MP3 and DVD players, they were already in the consumer arena before us. But, I think, Huawei will enjoy a very good and very long run with our mobile phones. We’ve been doing mobile phones for 10 years, and our technology is based on knowledge we’ve accumulated from our over 30 years of experience in various areas of technology. We started with chipset design more than 10 years ago. This is technology that needs time (to develop). Also, we’re now the leader in Leica cameras in smartphones, but even before this, I can say we were already good in imaging. We have a few research centers globally, particularly in France and Russia, and we’ve been working on producing better and smarter phones for over 10 years.
So the partnership with Leica is long term?
Yes, and it’s expensive. But Leica means a lot to photography; it brings a great experience to the user. Our partnership with Leica has been a good choice, and it’s not just a trading relationship (where the company does nothing more than pay a fee to use the Leica name. There’s collaboration in developing and bettering mobile-imaging technology.)
At the start of this partnership, some in the tech media criticized Huawei for not being forthcoming about the true nature of the partnership.
Our founder, Mr. Ren Zhengfei, believes such partnership is the right direction. His philosophy is you can’t do everything by yourself. If somebody else does it better, then wouldn’t it be better to work with them? An example would be our partnership with the Japanese for an industry product. In Japan they have a lot of excellent companies. We learn a lot from them. We don’t copy from anybody, but we buy what they’re good at. If they have good material, then we seek to cooperate with them. Buy camera from Germany, the mathematics from Russia. That’s what we do, and it’s part of why we have been successful.
Huawei releases two flagships annually—the Mate and the P brands. Has there been concern about two being too much? For example, somebody buys a Mate 9 and then six months later, his still-new phone already seems obsolete because Huawei has released a new P series flagship. Is there a danger that you are oversaturating the market?
First of all, the target consumers for the Mate and P series are different. Maybe some of them overlap, but each series has a lot of features different to fit these consumers.
You mean the screen size?
Not only that. For example, the Leica cameras. The P series is more directed toward lifestyle consumers. You and I, we choose the Mate series. For us, the older, working male market, we prefer the Mate. But, you see, my wife likes the P series better. (Laughs) Typically, the Mate appeals to males. It also depends on the market. For example, in China, people change mobile phones within nine months. That’s why it is important that we are also fast in releasing new phones. In America consumers typically get their phone under a contract with a carrier, so they change phones not as quickly as people in other markets do.
Huawei has won a lot of awards over the past four years. There’s been bit of criticism, though, that your newest flagship, P10/P10 Plus, doesn’t push the envelope far enough, particularly in terms of design or new advancements in technology, in the way Samsung does, for example.
Samsung has great products, but I think Huawei has greatly improved in the products we offer. No one is perfect. (Laughs) Everyone has good products and bad products. Everyone continues to innovate. We continue to improve, whether it’s in the physical design of our phones, the Leica cameras we use.
How are Huawei’s numbers in the Southeast Asian markets? There have been reports that with the exception of India, the region is already rather saturated.
I think for the whole market in the region, the growth is stable—not getting bigger but big and stable. Like Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, our market share is 10 percent more than last year. If we talk about growth in terms of market share, there are a lot of factors. For example, Malaysia, because of electronic consumer goods tax issues, the market seems to have contracted. But in the Philippines, it continues to grow, it’s a very steady growth and it continues to be a very promising market. In Singapore and Australia, it will be steady for a few years, no additional growth, but our market share within the region last year grew to 70 percent. Globally, we still have some catching-up to do; we have an 11.7-percent global market share. That’s why I travel constantly to visit and get insights on the markets where Huawei operates to continue to grow the brand.
Final question: Why did Huawei move the location of the fingerprint sensor from the back to the front with the Huawei P10/P10 Plus? Many people have come to realize that the best location for the sensor is in the back, because that’s where the finger normally rests when you’re using the phone.
Frankly, I myself want to know the reason for this change. (Laughs) The main reason for having the fingerprint sensor in the back is that it supports how you take a selfie. It would appear there’s been a change in the way you see the world, and now you take a photo with your finger in the front.