“In Barcelona this week, the annual Mobile World Congress had halls packed full with glossy stands from the world’s biggest technology brands,” Matt Warman reports for The Telegraph. “But it wasn’t just Qualcomm and Intel making themselves conspicuous on Spain’s north-west coast”. China’s Huawei was one of the few brands with not one but two enormous stands. And, perhaps more so than any other company in Barcelona, the Chinese giant’s message was clear. Already dominant in the infrastructure crucial to modern communications, now it also wants to be as big a brand for consumers as any other in the world.”
Warman reports, “Wan Biao is the chief executive of Huawei Devices, the division of the company leading the charge to move from controversial infrastructure provider to a top global company whose products consumers aspire to own. He’s aiming for nothing less than challenging Samsung and Apple… ‘If you look back five years ago, Apple is small, Samsung is not so big,’ says Wan. ‘You can’t see where we’ll be in five years. At least top three. Maybe number one.'”
“From a company that wasn’t backed by all the power and funding that China has to offer, these vaulting ambitions would sound absurd. But when the claims come from Huawei they are well worth listening to,” Warman reports. “Wan is shrewd, too. Asked if Huawei can really join Samsung and Apple in such a short time, his archness is apparent even through a translator: ‘I can’t predict who the other two will be.'”
Warman reports, “Whatever the truth of the suspicions that swirl around the company, Huawei indisputably has a brand problem: if you want to take on Apple and Samsung, consumers need to know you’re not spying for China.”
Read more in the full article here.
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