Huawei thriving in South Africa — even without Google

Even without support for Google’s apps and mobile services on its smartphones, Huawei has continued to be a dominant player in the South African mid-range smartphone market and is making significant in-roads into other product segments.

That is according to former Huawei South Africa consumer business CTO Akhram Mohamed, who recently moved to head of cybersecurity and privacy at the company.

Huawei has been diversifying its product range outside smartphones and tablets to include laptops, audio devices, wearables, and monitors — devices that don’t rely on Google Mobile Services (GMS).

Some have speculated that this was necessitated by a drop in smartphone sales after a US ban cut Huawei off from Google apps and GMS.

But Mohamed told MyBroadband that 2021 has been “extremely encouraging” for Huawei, with even smartphone sales beating its expectations.

“Perhaps we cut ourselves short a little bit because, unlike Europe and some of the other territories, South Africa has been absolutely phenomenal,” Mohamed said.

“When it comes to our smartphone business in general, it’s been very resilient,” he stated.

“If you are looking at the value market, which is what Huawei always competed on, then certainly we are doing well.”

Mohamed said that Huawei still held a dominant 40% market share of smartphones sold in South Africa in the $200 to $500 (R3,000 to R8,000) price band.

“That is massive, considering we don’t sell GMS [Google Mobile Services] phones,” Mohamed said.

“We’ve already depleted the models we had with GMS, so everything now, being sold, is HMS based.”

Some of the company’s models in this pricing segment include the Nova Y60, Nova 8i, P Smart 2021, and P40 Lite.

Another area in which Huawei has had huge success is its PC business.

Mohamed said Huawei’s PC shipments surged 350% in South Africa, resulting in a revenue increase of 400% in this segment.

He said that this was evidence that despite geopolitics and certain technology restrictions limiting Huawei, the Huawei brand was trusted in the country and had loyal South African followers.

The company first introduced its Huawei MateBook laptop line-up to the country in 2020.

It now includes the premium MateBook X Pro, affordable MateBook D series, and business-focused MateBook B range.

Mohamed added the PC figures might have been even better had Huawei not taken a conservative approach with its initial line-up.

“I think we could have done much better than that if we were more aggressive,” he stated.

“It’s not easy when you are a new entrant into the market, especially when you’ve already got the likes of Dell, HP, and Lenovo in the country, and they’ve got brand affinity,” he stated.

“Now you come with just one SKU and you are trying to penetrate and compete.”

Even with its limited initial range, Huawei became number one in its select channels within three months, Mohamed claimed.

He also noted Huawei recorded a 400% increase in sales in the local audio devices market and was now the second-best-selling wearables manufacturer in the country.

Now read: Huawei launches first monitors in South Africa — Pricing and specifications detailed