Huawei Phones: From Low-End to High-End

Abstract

Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) solutions with five strategic businesses, carrier business, enterprise business and consumer business. With more than 170,000 employees, Huawei operates in more than 170 countries and regions worldwide, serving more than one-third of the world’s population. The case study in this chapter focuses on the consumer business, i.e., Huawei mobile phones. The development of Huawei’s mobile phone business has gone through three phases marked by milestone events: the first phase is the old equilibrium phase. Huawei’s consumer business, initiated in 2003, ranked third in the world in terms of mobile phone shipments in 2009. However, these phones were simply white-label low-end handsets. The second phase is the reform phase. Around 2008, radical innovations characterized by smartphone operating systems disrupted the competition in the mobile phone industry. In 2011, Huawei began to transform from B2B to B2C. Since then, the strategic focus of the Consumer BG has shifted from focusing on low-end white-label phones to high-end smartphones. As a result, Huawei saw its mobile phone sales fall to eighth place in the world. In 2014, Huawei’s smartphone sales returned to the ranks of top three again. In 2017, Huawei surpassed Apple for the first time and joined the ranks of high-end phone manufacturers.