The Huawei Consumer Business Group (CBG) has entered the enterprise market in South Africa, with plans to serve government and the enterprise sectors, as well as mass consumers.
This is according to Justin Sun, CEO of Huawei CBG South Africa.
Sun was speaking at the Xperience Huawei 2022 event in Johannesburg last week, where the company’s consumer business unveiled its latest flagship products for the local market.
In addition to the new range of products, the CEO highlighted the consumer group’s plans for the business-to-business (B2B) segment, as the business plans its evolution locally.
“We are confident that we will reshape the B2B industry,” said the CEO. “We will bring new experience and innovations, and more benefits to commercial customers and our channel partners.
“Our new products include PCs, tablets, printers, screens, and so forth. There are two key advantages to this – namely, close-device collaboration that can connect the phone, tablet, PC and other devices into one.
“Another advantage is ecosystem integration, which integrates the Windows ecosystem with the mobile ecosystem. This way, all products become one super-device, making it easier for consumers to focus on multi-tasking, productivity and presentation.”
According to Sun, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Huawei launched business products that included the MateBook B series laptops and MateStation B series for desktops and monitors.
“During the next phase, we will invest more to build more flexible and powerful devices, in order to help government and SMEs to improve quality and efficiency.”
While Huawei faced opposition in the West, the company has weathered the storm in markets such as South Africa, with CBG VP of operations in SA Akhram Mohamed previously stating local consumers “still trust the Huawei brand”.
In May 2019, then US president Donald Trump announced Huawei – along with several other Chinese companies – had been placed on the blacklisted entities list. Companies on this list are unable to do business with any organisation that operates in the US.
With the ban, Huawei cannot work with companies such as Google, Qualcomm and Intel, among others.
Despite the hardships, Sun revealed the Huawei brand is “still going strong”.
In the 50 tech brands featured in the Brand Finance Global 500 ranking, the brand value is largely attributable to three big players, with Apple, Microsoft (brand value $184.2 billion) and Samsung Group (brand value $107.3 billion) together accounting for more than 50% of the total brand value in the sector.
Closely behind them, Huawei managed to reclaimits place among the top 10 most valuable brands in the world, following 29% growth to $71.2 billion.
“We continue increasing value for our customers and society. We worked to enhance our operations and will remain committed to building up a global and diversified supply chain.
“Thanks to our global consumers and partner support, last year Huawei ranked number nine on the Brand Finance global top brands, and our brand value increased by over 28% year-on-year,” he stated.
In terms of the company’s strategy and investment in SA, the CEO further commented that Huawei has managed to “grow steadily” in diversified product segments. “In terms of our smartphones, we are number two in South Africa in the $300 (about R5 100) price segment.
“Our PC segment grew 150% year-on-year. Similarly, wearables have been welcomed by our users and we were ranked top three in March this year in this segment.
“In our audio [earbuds] segment, our TWS earphones have registered 180% growth in South Africa year-on-year. We are very proud of these results.”
Sun concluded that the company will also continue to enhance its retail and service models, to improve consumer experience.
“Here in South Africa, we will extend our retail offering to 10 experience stores, 200 display rooms and counters, and 1 100 point-of-sale rooms.”
Share