In the first half of 2018, the shipment of Huawei smartphones reached a record high of over 95 million units.
At the 2018 Quality Conference of the mobile device giant Consumer Brand Group in July, Richard Yu did not show too much enthusiasm for the outstanding performance and data of the past half year. Instead, he spent more time talking about his thoughts and plans for the future.
Richard Yu said that the original estimated shipments of mobile phones in 2018 were 180 million units. And now, 200 million units would not be a problem. After observation and analysis, he estimated that the market share of Huawei mobile phones would exceed 20% by Q4 2019, becoming the highest in the world.
However, he added, “Becoming No.1 in market share is not Huawei’s primary concern. If we aimed for the highest market share, we would have been the highest just by delivering budget phones priced at lower than US $100. Huawei is dedicated to pursuing higher quality, with customer satisfaction as its core principle. Achieving the highest market share is not regarded as a major priority. Therefore, we take NPS as our only KPI.”
In this meeting, one sentence drew the most attention, that is, “Both the starting point and end point of Huawei Consumer Business Group are consumers.” As the growth in the global smartphone market slows down, consumers have to be put at the center of Huawei’s strategies.
First, as the competition in a full range of scenarios begins, Huawei develops a full-scenario strategy that provides seamless experiences with a three-layered ecosystem. The main scenarios include home, office, driving, and health/fitness. The terminals in these scenarios include handsets, tablets, PCs, wearables, TVs, speakers, vehicle systems, and IoT hardware. The full-scenario experience revolution is realized through smart engines and scenario intelligence.
The second strategy is to innovate the chipsets, devices, and cloud. Huawei has invested near RMB 100 billion in R&D every year, ranking sixth in the world and hopefully first in the future. Huawei has committed a small fortune towards further development and innovation and it is reassuring to see that these wise investments are finally beginning to pay off. Richard Yu revealed that the upcoming Kirin 980, the world’s first commercial 7nm mobile SoC, boasts significantly improved performance, which is far ahead of its competitors. 5G will also present Huawei with several opportunities afforded by its many inherent advantages.
