On Tuesday, we briefly touched on one of the biggest questions Huawei needs to answer to be successful in the smartphone market: How does the Chinese company make enough noise to compete with the colossal entities that are Apple and Samsung?
The first thing Huawei did was make the biggest smartphone in the world - Ascend Mate, which boasts of 6.1-inch display. The second is, apparently, to start directly going after its competitors for making inferior products.
In an interview with The Verge, Huawei's head of consumer electronics Richard Yu sounded out Samsung for running up the costs of phones like the Galaxy S3 to pad its profit margins, specifically citing that particular product's "very cheap plastic." Attempting to make his company the clear consumer-friendly choice, he said that Huawei is more than willing to rake in less profit if it can offer customers prices that run 20-30 percent less than others. He then went after virtually everyone in the market, saying there's been little innovation since the death of Steve Jobs.
"In the past people understood that the best products came from Apple or Samsung. We want to change this so that people understand that the best products come from Huawei. That's my target," Yu said. He went on to add that Huawei is "a globalized company, so that's why we can do better. And behind all that, we have our spirit. It's very important."
Yu also addressed issues pertaining to the perception of his company, referring to a U.S. congressional probe into Huawei, saying that progress may be slow at the moment but that he expects to turn things around.
Huawei "needs some time for the US carriers to accept high end [products] from Huawei. We're early in the US market, but maybe [there are] some other reasons like trust, for the carriers. The US government is also an influence - it gives some noise," said Yu.
This year's 2013 International CES (or CES 2013) was an important one for the company, as it officially revealed a 6.1-inch monster of a smartphone, the Ascend Mate. The phone is a direct attack on Samsung's Galaxy Note phablet, and the company is hoping to sell it globally in the coming months.
