Huawei eyes 10% premium smartphone share in India

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei is aiming to make a serious dent into the growing premium smartphone market in India with its newly-launched P30 and P30 Pro devices. The company, which is betting big on the roll-out of the 5G network in India and is set to start trials with partner telcos in the country soon, is also looking at capturing a bigger share in the Indian smartphone market, a top company executive told IANS here. According to Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group, with their new P series smartphones, they are looking to capture 10 per cent of the premium smartphone market in India by the end of this year. 

The company is aiming to replace market leader Samsung and other premium segment players like Apple and Google with its feature-rich P30 and P30 Pro. The company has been facing a somewhat tepid response for its P20 phones, launched last year in India, and with the much-improved camera and videography features, Huawei feels they now have a winner in the P30 series. 

"We are so low in the premium smartphone market in India. Last year, we invested to make our phones better and with the new P series, we are confident to have 10 per cent share in the Indian premium smartphone market," Yu said. 

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The P30 and P30 Pro phones are priced in the range of Euro 799 to Euro 1,249 for the European market. These would be priced relatively cheaper in India when launched by the middle of next month. Keeping the price-sensitive Indian market, the new P series may also be manufactured in India later. 

"Manufacturing will depend on volumes. Once we have that, our Indian facility will start rolling out the new phones," Yu said, adding that they would also look at the development of local features and app for their phones in India as and when the opportunity arrives. 

He, however, evaded a question on whether they were also working on a new operating system (OS) for their phones. Yu also refused to give Indian pricing for its phones but said that it would be similar to what they did with the P20 series last year. P20 phones sold 60 million units globally last year, while in India, the fastest growing smartphone market, it touched 20 million units. The global numbers for Huawei stood at 206 million units in 2018. 

Yu said that with the new launches, the numbers would grow 25-30 per cent in 2019.