Smartphone maker Huawei aims to garner 10 per cent market share in India by 2019 and meet around 80 per cent of the sales demand in the country from local manufacturing.
“India is a top priority market for us and we are making product strategies aligned to meet needs of Indian market. Honor 9 Lite launched today is an example of our India first strategy. We are expecting to have 10 per cent market share by 2019,” said Allen Wang, Director Product Centre, Honor India. He said the company recorded three times more sales of Honor 7X and Honor View 10 that were launched last month in India compared to the previous version of the same series that was sold in 2016. Huawei mainly sells its online brand smartphone Honor in India.
The company today unveiled two variants of the first smartphone with four cameras, Honor 9 Lite, for Rs 10,999 (32GB internal storage) and Rs 14,999 (64 GB). The new devices will go on sale from of January 21 on e-commerce platform Flipkart. Built on Android 8.0 platform, it comes with a 5.65-inch display, 13 megapixel dual cameras (on both the front and rear) and supports Indian languages.
“Right now China accounts for 80 per cent of Honor device sales. Honor led China market in January–November 2017. We have set target that in next three years 50 per cent of total sales come from outside China and India is a key market for us,” he said.
The EMUI 8.0 (Huawei’s smartphone interface) of Honor 9 Lite has been developed in India as part of strategy to focus on India,” Wang said. EMUI 8.0 has artificial intelligence technology, including enhanced F2FS file system -- a technology that will prevent slowing down of the smartphone over time, he said.
The company has launched Honor 9 Lite first in India and will gradually launch it in other countries.
Wang said that Honor makes 70–80 per cent smartphones at Huawei’s facility in Chennai. “We will maintain this level of production. We may increase the production level next year and not reduce it. The production level will be around 80 per cent of the smartphones that will be sold in India. The demand for Honor 7X was so high that we started making in India immediately,” Wang said.
He said that company has an “India first” strategy to meet its target of achieving number 5 position globally for Honor devices. “We expect Honor, which is sold in 74 countries, to be fifth largest selling brand globally and India is a key market for us to achieve this growth,” Wang said.