Question

1. Explain in what way the advanced innovative features of the Huawei smartphones are being used either as a market pull or market push strategy, relating to the case study given below.

Case study : Huawei smartphones in Ireland

Read the following case study and then answer to the questions at the end. Remember to link the theoretical content seen in class with the case.

You can consult the course material and the internet to provide a deeper analysis to your questions. Remember to include the sources consulted after each answer.

Situation analysis

Huawei was a global Chinese tech giant with a strange

name and no brand recognition in the Irish market. Huawei had 4 per cent market share and was viewed as a non-contender against competitor brands.

SWOT analysis

Strengths and weaknesses

Huawei's strengths are the quality of their products. They are also the largest telecom equipment maker. The market perceived Huawei smartphones as being'cheap'and their products not on par with competitive products in the market. However, Huawei products are developed with the latest and smartest technologies with continual product innovation and improvement. Huawei products are cheaper than their competitors. Huawei's agency, Connecter, knew that the P8 could compete more than credibly in key product areas such as the camera and the social sharing functions. Huawei's P8 has, arguably, the best phone camera in the market.

Opportunities

Alongside the overall growth in popularity of smartphones, the increasing use of the photo function and the desire to share, market research revealed the growing popularity of Instagram as a platform for those who really enjoy their photography. Instagram is unique amongst social media platforms. This gives a wealth of opportunities for rich visual storytelling and photographs in particular. Instagram posts get 120 times more engagement than Facebook and 58 times more than Twitter.

Threats

Intense competition comes from Apple, Samsung, Sony and HTC, all of whom enjoy a well-established, long-standing, presence in the market. The dominance of these, and other, competitors presented a real challenge for Huawei. For example, Apple's iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy are recognized worldwide as fantastic smartphones. Combined, they accounted for over 60 per cent of all smartphones sold in Ireland.

Target audience

Customer research identified that Instagram was a natural home for photographers using smartphones. These are not professional photographers, but rather, just those people that simply enjoy taking photos. Taking good photos and sharing are important to Instagrammers. So Instagrammers were targeted with photograph awards in different categories used to engage them. Two key segments were targeted:

1 The Life Enhancers-those with a variety of hobbies, whose product choice is part of their identity and who like to keep their social circle up to date.

2 The Tech Explorers-these are the fashionable tech connoisseurs who embrace all that is new as long as a product is in tune with their technical critical sense.

Further customer research uncovered their interests and attitudes, which were crucial in helping to select the categories for the awards: Fashion, Travel, Technology, Sports, Family etc. These categories were used when selecting Instagrammers to help promote the awards. Connector, carefully selected influencers who represented these categories (or user segments). With over 480,000 Instagram users in Ireland at the time, this platform was discovered as having the potential to open up a critical mass which could make sufficient noise and impact for Huawei. Surprisingly, there weren't too many brands active on Instagram! Only 20 per cent of the top 100 brands on Facebook in Ireland were active on Instagram. It would be easier to stand out on Instagram than on any of the other major social platforms.

Objectives

To break into the Irish premium smartphone market and establish Huawei as a credible challenger by building Huawei's quality, technical and social credentials, while simultaneously increasing distribution and market share in Ireland. Specifically, this meant:

1 Build Huawei's quality, technical and social credentials

2 Increase distribution of Huawei P8 (and other Huawei phones) from 70 per cent to 100 per cent of smartphone distributors by the end of 2015

3 Double Huawei's market share in Ireland (from 4 per cent to 8 per cent) by the end of 2021.