[Ben]

Huawei has unveiled its Ascend D series smartphones, its new premium handset line designed to secure it top spot in the speed race, as it set aggressive sales targets for the 2012 calendar year.

The company announced two devices with quad-core processors, the Ascend D quad and D quad XL, which include 1.2GHz and 1.5GHz chips. They are powered by a Huawei-made application processor, which also includes advanced graphics processing capabilities.

At the company’s launch event, Richard Yu, chairman of Huawei Device, said its quadcore smartphones significantly outperformed a quadcore tablet that is already available, which is significant because it is powered by the same Nvidia processor which is now making its way into the smartphone space.

Yu revealed that the company is looking to ship 60 million smartphones in 2012, up from 20 million in 2011. Much of the volume (30 percent – 40 percent) will come from the Chinese market, where customers are shifting to smartphones from feature phones, aided by aggressive operator subsidies.

The executive said that having previously built its position with low-cost devices, Huawei sees technology leadership as important for the future. “We want the best performance in the industry, because our brand is not that famous,” he said.

Yu said the company is already in talks with tier-one operators about D quad availability, and that pricing will be “competitive” when compared to similar products from rivals. Global availability is scheduled in the second quarter of 2012.

Yu closed the event by revealing that Huawei is readying a tablet device with full HD resolution and quad-core processor, which will be “not lower than the iPad 3.” This device will also include LTE connectivity.

http://www.mobilebusinessbriefing.com/articles/huawei-stakes-claim-on-smartphone-speed-crown/22505?elq=56b3ffa5e52f4594a48bd1239952df5a

[Hands0n]

I am not surprised at this development. The Chinese have been building their expertise and consolidating their position. Huawei are a formidable company so this kit is likely to be really quite something.

[Ben]

I hope it is. Samsung has had a bit of an easy ride at the top of the Android market when, as far as I can tell, there's little reason for the Chinese competition not to clean up.

[3GScottishUser]

This now looks like the spec to beat for the rest. They have a first with a quad core tablet too which looks interesting. If the build quality, user experience and pricing are right I can see these devices firmly establishing Hauwei as a consumer brand worldwide.

[Hands0n]

Point of order, Huawei are second out of the gate with a 10" quad core tablet. The first was Asus with their Eee Pad Transformer TF201 Prime.

[hecatae]

http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-phone/huawei-ascend-g300 Ascend G300 coming to vodafone, different handset?

[Ben]

Yeah. I wonder what sort of price the Ascend G300 will be going for? Blurb sounds like it'll be pretty cheap.

[Hands0n]

I quite like the look of the Ascend from what I can make out of the Vodafone advert.

Then there are Huawei's intentions "... the company is looking to ship 60 million smartphones in 2012, up from 20 million in 2011.". That is a serious uplift in their shipping volumes. They obviously feel confident that they are ready to hit the global market with some impact.

[Ben]

It is, isn't it. 60m is a staggering number, even in such a rapidly growing market as smartphones.

I'm not sure if Huawei have the brand-clout to pull off such a coup.

[3GScottishUser]

It is, isn't it. 60m is a staggering number, even in such a rapidly growing market as smartphones.

I'm not sure if Huawei have the brand-clout to pull off such a coup.

I'd imagine their home market will be their main one and depending on the definition of a 'smartphone' they could hit that target I think.

Huawei have quietly been building themselves into a major player and have provided most of the networking hardware for the BT Century 21 network in preference to Cisco. They also nearly bought 3Com a year or so ago but the US government stopped them claiming National Security concerns.

There is no doubt that Huawei and other Chinese companies are going to make a bigger impact in the next few years. Perhaps Apple and Co will eventually regret having all their products manufactured in China as the Chinese seem to be able to offer quality products with a similar look and feel. I'm sure branding and software will keep Apple, Samsung etc ahead for a while but I doubt it'll be too long before Huawei and ZTE will be selling at similar prices to the market leaders of today.

[Hands0n]

By "Apple and Co" do you mean pretty much every single major western electronics brand? You know, Apple, Nokia (Lumia are Chinese made), Motorola ... the list goes on.

China has done in the 21st century what Japan did in the 70's and 80's, that is to make themselves into a major manufacturing force for leading edge technologies. Mostly built on the back of near-slave-labour. I remember well the tales of Japanese electronics assembly line workers, sat at their stations for hours on end, soldering discrete components into circuit boards and going blind in the process. Robotic "board stuffers" replaced them eventually - one has to wonder how they earn the money to buy their food these days. And as with all things cyclic it is now China's turn at the mill.

Huawei are a formidable organisation with seriously impressive finances. Their reach is far beyond personal electronics, and stretches across national and global networks, both terrestrial and wireless. And typical of the Chinese mentality, they are in it for the long game. No matter how long it takes, they will sink endless investment to come out on top eventually. A good insight to Huawei may be found here --> http://www.huawei.com/uk/about-huawei/corporate-info/index.htm

So can they conquer the western markets with their 2012 devices? I rather believe that they can.

[Ben]

Thing is, Huawei have clearly signalled that they want a slice of the premium end of the market, and that tends to mean a premium brand to back it up. If they can offer high-end specs at mid-range prices then, well, they may well mop up - but they won't do it by being a 'me too' next to established players like Samsung and HTC who consumers now trust with their money.

But any brand gets established in time, of course. I mean, just look at HTC. My own personal thoughts on their products aside :)

I don't think anyone will regret getting their kit manufactured in China simply due to the advantage it might give the Chinese companies in producing rival goods. Products that take a lot of design and engineering may be easily copied once the idea has been born, but they'll always just be copies - people tend to want the real thing. That said, Samsung, being a company I consider to be rather good at, arm, 'emulating' successful competition to a degree, could find it tough to get played at its own game.

[3GScottishUser]

Put the Huawei Quad Core smartphone on the shelves next to the iPhone, HTCs and Samsung Galaxy S2 and it'll more than hold it's own because it's equally stylish and has a far better spec which the store staff and networks won't be slow to point out. Margins on the Huawei are likey to be better too so that will provide an incentive to show customers what it can offer.

Looking back to my days in the late 70s and early 80s in the retail consumer electronics market it took no time at all for Panasonic (National Panasonic and Technics as they were then), Aiwa, Akai, Rotel, Marantz, Sharp, Sanyo, Toshiba and Hitachi to join Sony and displace well known British and European brands like Ferguson, Decca, ITT, Philips, Pye, Murphy and Bush.

The Chinese situation is very different from the Japanese advances in the 70s and 80s as they were companies that designed and produced products in Japan and exported them to compete with home grown products. The Chinese have learned from making products for American, Japanese and Korean companies and whilst providing production for big names have been investing in competitive products which are slowly but surely coming up to if not surpassing the standards of those they have previously assembeled for the current market leaders. Notably Samsung and LG keep their top of the range devices in-house and they are designed and made in Korea. Having production facilities is a plus factor which may be a key issue as the smartphone, tablet and mobile computer market becomes even more competitive.