Smartphone sales around the world are increasing rapidly but this has been of little joy to several manufacturers. Nokia and Research In Motion, which once held the largest market share, are on the verge of collapse after a loss in sales and a depreciating share value. Motorola Mobility that had a range of innovative designs has been taken over by Google while Sony and LG are falling off the radar too. On the other hand, Apple and Samsung are thriving in the business and have a combined market share of 54%. There is another company that appears to be a big winner and it is a name that is quite unsuspecting. According to analysts, Huawei is now the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer and it has jumped 4 places for number 7 last year. The only reason it is not as popular as other companies is because it lacks numbers in the United States market.
Huawei was founded in 1987 and was initially selling telecom hardware and solutions to various companies and quickly overtook the likes of Ericsson, Alcatel and Cisco. It was only in the mid-2000s that Huawei branded smartphones were manufactured and because of their economic pricing, they gained a lot of prominence in China, the Middle East and in Africa. This low price strategy appears to be the key to the success of its smartphones that started selling in 2009. Moreover, Huawei made no attempt to develop new software for its devices and just used the freely available Android OS. Moreover, unlike Samsung and HTC which use variants of Android, Huawei just installed the OS and shipped the devices, saving a lot of money in the process.
Huawei has a very optimistic outlook about this year as it expects to sell around 60mln smartphones, which is thrice its current figure. Moreover, it appears to be ready to take on the American market as well. So far, Huawei phones sell for around $200 through pay as you go plans and it has only recently roped in AT&T for large scale selling. AT&T markets one phone for a base price of $29. The reason for Huawei’s confidence is that it opened up the smartphone market for low income customers and hopes to retain its hold. Meanwhile, the first Huawei phone with Android ICS is going to be released in the Canadian market through Wind Mobile.
