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By Charumini de Silva
Huawei, Sri Lanka’s fastest growing smartphone brand, increased its market share to over 30% in Q3, selling over 500,000 smartphones to the value of Rs. 6.5 billion in 2016 and is ambitious to become the island’s number one smartphone brand in this year with significant investment plans in the pipeline for 2017.
Having started from zero base in 2012, Huawei Sri Lanka Country Head Device Henry Liu acknowledged that Singer as the sole distributor had successfully assisted in propelling its brand image and market share in Sri Lanka through its distribution as well as its undisputed after sales service.
“With the successful partnership of over four years together, we are optimistic that we will achieve the number one mark in the near future,” he said at a recent press briefing held at the Singer Head Office in Colombo. In Sri Lanka, Huawei has brought in a turnover of Rs. 5 billion by the end of 2016. Apart from marketing and distribution, Singer has also helped take Huawei to greater heights in terms of localised advertising as well.
With a view to expand its presence islandwide Huawei is planning to set up five new Experience Centres in key parts of the country where they expect to invest over $ 500,000 during this year. “We have intensified our investments in the country and we remain bold and focused in order to achieve our ultimate goal of becoming the number one smartphone brand in Sri Lanka,” Liu noted. Through advanced technology, innovation and collaboration, Huawei will continue to deliver devices with cutting edge products and amazing user experience to its customers and assured that they plan to unveil two high-end, four mid-range, eight low-range and two new tablets during this year to the Sri Lankan market.
“There is a great shift from feature phones to smartphones in Sri Lanka and from this year onwards, we will only introduce 4G enables phones. Our focus has graduated to intensively strengthening our customer care and service offering as we enter a stage of continued product introductions, offering the best to our customers in Sri Lanka,” he added.
Liu also acknowledged that Huawei, as a brand, highly believes in the strategy of adopting a stringent focus and investment into their Research and Development. By the end of 2015, Huawei globally, had achieved total revenue of $9.2 billion and out of a figure such as this; around 15% is dedicated for Research and Development (R&D) purposes.
Singer Sri Lanka PLC Group CEO Asoka Pieris said over 500,000 smartphones to the value of Rs. 6.5 billion has been sold to date through its dealerships. “As the exclusive national distributor, we are constantly driving our service offering and we are strengthening our distribution and retail network in a collaborated effort to increase accessibility of latest technologically advanced devices from Huawei.”
In terms of technology, he stressed that Huawei has identified that technology should be accessible to all of our consumers in the country and dad no doubt adapted itself and its brand name within a more localised outlook to suit the prospective Sri Lankan smartphone user. “Coupled with the Singer brand’s knowhow, customer base, islandwide reach and backing from dealers, Huawei has in a very short period of time made a name for itself working alongside Singer,” Pieris explained.
Pic by Daminda Harsha Perera
