After Xiaomi, Huawei to strengthen its offline retail presence in India

After Xiaomi, Huawei is another Chinese smartphone manufacturer that is doing well in the Indian market. Further achieving greater success through its sub-brand Honor and having a strong presence in the online space, the time might be right for the company to explore other ventures as well.

As such, a top company executive has now revealed that Huawei could head into strengthening its offline presence as well in India. The focus to expand would especially be in tier II and III cities.

Xiaomi has setup two exclusive retail stores Mi Home in Bengaluru and even has plans to open a third one while Motorola also recently announced on August 3 that it has launched six Moto Hubs in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.

"Since the skew is heavily in favor of going offline, we are working on strengthening this channel. Given the growing 4G penetration, we are set to serve tier II and III markets and working towards this on a priority basis," P. Sanjeev, Vice President, Sales, Huawei India-Consumer Business Group, told IANS.

We already know that the Indian smartphone market is the fastest growing market in the world and for Chinese brands apart from their home ground India has become the top destination for registering big numbers. Further market research firm Counterpoint Research has reported that Chinese smartphone brands have already marked a record 48 percent market share worldwide, with India remaining a key focus geography.And with 20 percent overseas smartphones shipments (YoY), Huawei is among the fastest-growing Chinese brands. In India, it recorded 1.5 percent market share in the second quarter this year.

However, as the festive season is coming soon, Huawei along with Honor is focused on enhancing engagement with its customers. "Since Honor is a pan-India brand, our strategy would be two-pronged: Region-specific and national. For the former, we plan to leverage festivals like Onam, which is known for its consumer-buying frenzy (in Kerala), to widen our customer base with special promotions and irresistible offers."

"Similarly, for Durga Puja, we would adopt a focus to tap consumers in the eastern region with schemes specially tailored for that audience," Sanjeev said.

In this, Honor's rich portfolio of smartphone across various price-points led by the recently launched Honor 8 Pro would play a significant role in registering a significant spike.

"What is going to bolster this is the fact that Honor straddles offline and online retail channels, which means we effectively cater to a wide swathe of customers who can avail our festive offers," the executive stated.

Talking about offline presence, Huawei last month also did launch 17 exclusive service centers across the country. According to Sanjeev, with the launch of these service centers, Huawei can now assure best in class after-sale services to its consumers.

Adding to that, in the coming months, Honor has plans to unleash a host of products, in various segments and categories. "India continues to be a priority market for us and, going forward, you will see that new product launches here will be simultaneous with other global geographies. In fact, there could even be instances of launches here ahead of other markets," Sanjeev added.