Turning over a new leaf
Chinese telco giant Huawei chose the unlikely setting of the Salone del Mobile Furniture Fair in Milan to unveil its first concept phone, called the ‘folded leaf'.
The reason for the setting and the launch itself was to emphasise Huawei's commitment to bringing something a bit different to the table. As is often the case with design concepts, an apparently well-known design house has got involved (Claesson Koivisto Rune).
I'll spare you all the usual talk of the perfect balance between form and function and move straight onto Victor Xu, CMO of Huawei Device. "We place the consumer experience at the heart of our business, and that begins with product design," said Xu. "We are very excited to be showcasing Folded Leaf and will continue to push the boundaries of trends and design ideas to offer diverse experiences for consumers."
Huawei's device division is relatively young, with its core business being telco infrastructure, but it still managed to ship 120 million devices last year, the majority of which were sold outside China, generating $4.5 billion in revenue. To get a bit more background on why Huawei decided to get into the concept device game, I spoke to James Blackman, brand and comms manager at Huawei.
Blackman explained that Huawei launched a ‘smart device, simple world' strategy last year, which stressed its commitment to make intuitive, aesthetically-pleasing devices. He also said the fact that it's not a smartphone reflects the fact that there's still a lot of business to be done in the featurephone market.
Having said that, I was reminded that Huawei launched a couple of Android devices at this year's MWC. The Ideos X3 Gingerbread smartphone is expected to launch internationally in the middle of this year, and cost under $200, while the Ideos S7 Slim seven-inch Froyo tablet is due to launch globally this month, but no price has been offered.
Huawei seems to be happy to take its time in the device market. It has the confidence of having a massive infrastructure business and the operator relationships that come with it. There's a frenzied scramble going on right now, primarily at the high end of the smartphone market.
My feeling is that it can afford to watch how the market evolves and pick the area that offer the most potential. Right now that seems to mean the price band below high end smartphones that's occupied by the latest featurephones and entry-level smartphones. And why not?
