China’s
Huawei Technologies wants to be the world’s second-largest maker of
smartphones in two years, Richard Yu, chief executive of Huawei’s
consumer business group, told Reuters on Thursday.
Having made its name as a
builder of telecommunications networks, Huawei has been active in the
consumer devices market for only a few years and is now the
third-biggest smartphone maker after Apple and the world leader in the
$400 billion market, Samsung.
“When we announced four years
ago that we wanted to sell phones, people told us we were crazy. When we
said we wanted to sell 100 million phones, they told us we were crazy,”
Yu said at a launch event in Munich.
Huawei on Thursday launched a
new premium phone, which will sell for EUR 699 apiece. A version
developed with Porsche Design will cost EUR 1,395.
The phone has a new artificial
intelligence feature: It can learn about its user’s habits and
automatically put the most frequently used apps in easy reach.
Huawei was the world’s
third-largest smartphone maker in the third quarter with 33.6 million
shipped devices, giving it a 9 percent market share, according to
research firm Strategy Analytics.
Apple was still well ahead with
45.5 million devices, or a 12 percent market share. Samsung was the
world leader with 75.3 million shipped devices and a market share of
20.1 percent.
“We are going to take them
(Apple) step-by-step, innovation-by-innovation,” Yu said, adding that he
expected to improve Huawei’s position along with technology shifts.
“There will be more
opportunities. Artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented
reality,” he said. “It is like driving a car. At every curve or turn,
there is an opportunity to overtake the competition.”
With the new phone, dubbed Mate
9, Yu expects to make a break in European markets such as Germany,
France and Great Britain. “In Finland, we are already number one,” he
said.
With Apple struggling to come up
with surprise designs and Samsung reeling from having to scrap its
flagship phone, Yu said Huawei was at a tipping point.
“Step-by-step we are winning the trust and loyalty of the customers. It is about trust and loyalty.”
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