final report - Jianlan Zhang

Improving Localization of Huawei Smartphone
Business in the UK
Jianlan Zhang
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of
MSc Business Technology Consulting
University of Reading
September 2015

Table of Contents
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................1
1. Introduction................................................................................................................3
2. Problem Definition and Requirements.......................................................................3
2.1 Problem Description.............................................................................................3
2.2 Business case........................................................................................................4
2.3 Relevant background details ................................................................................4
2.4 Scope....................................................................................................................5
2.5 Client business objectives ....................................................................................6
3. Analysis of the initial situation ..................................................................................6
3.1 Problem and factors to be investigated ................................................................6
3.2 Research context, project plan and risks ..............................................................8
4. Research Approach ....................................................................................................9
4.1 Intellectual challenge............................................................................................9
4.2 Research methodology and techniques ..............................................................10
5. Analysis....................................................................................................................11
5.1 Strategy analysis.................................................................................................11
5.2 Culture analysis..................................................................................................12
5.3 Retailing process modelling...............................................................................13
5.4 Successful cases of Huawei smartphone business .............................................15
5.5 Competitor analysis............................................................................................17
5.6 Consumer analysis..............................................................................................19
6. Solution Synthesis....................................................................................................23
7. Proposed Solution....................................................................................................23
8. Improvement Plan....................................................................................................25
Reference List ..............................................................................................................27
Appendix A – Interview Notes ....................................................................................30
Appendix B – Consumer Questionnaire ......................................................................33
Student Experience ......................................................................................................38

1
Executive Summary
The important strategic positioning of the UK market and the growing business desire for
better brand recognition bring challenges to current Huawei UK Device Department, since
consumer business, especially smartphone, is an effective tool to increase brand awareness
and penetrate the local market. Revenue made from EMEA market (Europe, the Middle East
and Africa) was only 2.8% less than Chinese market throughout the year of 2014, recording
an regional increase of 20.2% YoY (year-on-year) (Huawei, 2015). However, poor
localization, such as product design without catering to local needs and rare commercial
campaigns in the UK, contributes to poor brand recognition, thereby leads to relatively low
sales. Thus improving localization of Huawei smartphone business in the UK is sorely needed
to boost sales and facilitate healthy sustainable business development. Strategic and financial
support from the Board as well as close cooperative relationship between Huawei UK and
British government offer opportunities for Huawei smartphone business localization.
This report analyses Huawei UK smartphone business context, evaluates current business
operations, and identifies the gap between present and desired status. Content of analyses
include strategies, culture, retailing process modelling, competitors and as well as consumer
behaviour. Other aspects such as costs, benefits and risks will also be considered.
The project aims to propose a solution to help improve the localization of Huawei
smartphone business in the UK. It shall meet these three main business requirements,
according to interviews with Sidney Sun, the Head of Retail & Marketing in Huawei
Consumer BG UK Office (details available in Appendix A):
1) Expand Huawei’s local market share, especially high-end products.
2) Increase Huawei brand awareness and brand loyalty.
3) Improve interactions with consumers and build healthy public rapport.
In order to achieve these objectives, problems existing in current business procedures
should be found out first based on collecting data by way of literature review, stakeholder
interviews, field investigation and consumer questionnaire.
Figure 1 shows the solution implementation plan. Successful localization of business
activities depends on thorough understanding the regional market and well-thought-out
planning. The execution of localization solution will have positive impact on communications
with consumers through product improvement and better user experience. Hopefully, it will
spur revenue growth in the UK market not only in smartphone sales, but also in other Huawei
business areas. Costs, benefits and risks of localization are summarised in Figure 2.

2
Figure 1 Implementation roadmap
Costs Benefits Risks
•R&D cost
•commercial exposure cost,
like ads and sponsorship
•better customer service leads
to cost in employee
recruitment/training,
information systems, etc.
•team management cost
•employees work overload &
job dissatisfaction
•improve products, user
experience and brand
recognition
•increase smartphone sales,
penetrate the UK market
•unleash power of Huawei
•chances to develop other
Huawei business
•win a good international
reputation
•may lose balance between
localization and product
globalization/standardization
•may lead to centralization/
decentralization issues
•over localization may pose
danger to retain brand value
and identity (Spire, 2012)
•ballooning costs may hurt
business development
Figure 2 Cost/benefit/risk analyses
Key problems and corresponding recommendations are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1 Current problems and recommendations
Problems Recommendation
Little commercial exposure. Sponsor UK nationwide events and put up video posters.
UI design does not match local
taste.
Invest in R&D, like joint innovation centres, to improve UI
design. British consumers like brighter screen display and
bigger icons, and British R&D workers know the local
preferences.
Poor stock management. Investigate market need before launching new products.
Repair service is a complaint. Amend contract with Carphone to include repair service, set up
Huawei aftersales service sites and brand store afterwards.
Unmotivated field force team. Differentiate salaries among different labours; give extra bonus
to exceptional performance.
Hard for non-Chinese people to
pronounce “Huawei”.
Raise campaigns or put video posters to teach people how to
pronounce “Huawei” or use “Wah-way” instead.

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1. Introduction
Huawei, a privately-owned company headquartered in Shenzhen, China, is a leading global
information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider with products and
services deployed over 140 countries. In the meantime, Huawei surpasses Microsoft to
become the planet’s third largest mobile smartphone manufacturer in Q2 2015 (Strategy
Analytics, 2015). Huawei set up its first UK office in 2001 and announced its investment
commitment to the UK in 2012. The UK market is placed as a “must win” region in Huawei’s
strategy; it wants 100 million smartphone sales in 2015 while investing more and
continuously in the UK (Garwood, 2015). Though Huawei has become a major player in the
global smartphone market, the UK remains a difficult place to crack with less than 1 per cent
share (Huang, cited in Garwood, 2015). Consequently, to improve Huawei smartphone
localization is sorely needed to increase brand recognition and penetrate the UK market.
Before carrying out detailed analyses, assumptions are made clear here:
 Huawei’s organization and business structure will remain stable in the next a few
years, with no drastic change like shifting from B2B (business to business) to B2C
(business to customer) four years ago.
 Huawei will still have good relationship with British government, which will create a
favourable political environment for business development.
By analysing current and desired status of Huawei smartphones in the UK market, this
report aims to find out the issues, and then propose a solution to help improve brand
localization. Detailed analyses will be depicted in each section later.
2. Problem Definition and Requirements
2.1 Problem Description
Though Huawei’s global brand awareness has become 65% in 2014, representing recognition
by two thirds of the world population (Huawei, 2015), it takes around 7 per cent of more
popular European smartphone markets (such as Spain, Germany and Italy), with the UK
market considerably less (Doidge, 2014). The UK market is like no other in the world, with
leading brands Apple and Samsung having an enormous percentage of the market, accounting
for around 60-70 per cent (Huang, cited by Garwood, 2015). Most of British consumers do
not favour Huawei smartphone design due to culture difference. What is worse, it is
undeniable that only a small portion of British consumers have ever heard of Huawei brand.
In a nutshell, poor localization has become a barrier for Huawei smartphones to penetrate the
UK market. Detailed problem analysis will be carried out in Section 3.

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2.2 Business case
Since Huawei smartphone business has an important positioning in the whole Huawei
business spectrum, and the UK is among Europe’s big five markets, which is regarded as a
second home land region for Huawei and can play a big difference in realizing Huawei’s
globalization, it is essential to localize Huawei smartphone business in the UK. What is more,
the benefit of localization will include tangible increased profit, enhanced brand recognition
together with intangible customer value built and potential benefit to the parent corporation.
The starting point of this business case is to look into the business operations and find
out existing issues, which might be measured by sales, brand recognition and other metrics.
And the main focus of the case is to investigate and address on current consumer needs in the
UK market, as local need is the core engine of localization.
2.3 Relevant background details
Figure 3 shows the current Huawei organization structure after moving from B2B to B2C four
years ago. The reason for this transition is due to Huawei’s brand marketing needs, which
aims at raising its profile among consumers and building a global brand (Steenkamp, 2014).
Figure 3 Huawei corporate structure (Huawei, 2015)

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Bearing a resemblance to Huawei corporate, Huawei UK has three business groups
(BG): Network BG, Enterprise BG and Consumer BG. It has established strategic partnership
with main carriers in the UK, including Vodafone, EE and BT in past 14 years. Consumer BG
offers a suite of mobile phones, mobile broadband devices and home products. Sidney
claimed that Huawei B2C business, especially smartphone sector, plays an important role in
the whole Huawei business spectrum; Smartphone, due to its psychologically addictive
attribute, is a good tool to interact with consumers and help build good brand image as well as
public rapport.
Vying for market share, Huawei sells a range of smartphones in the UK, from high-
end P series to low-end Y family. Generally, Huawei UK Device Department cooperates with
the biggest mobile smartphone retailer in the UK – Carphone Warehouse, to sell its products
to consumers online or in physical stores. Another smaller portion of smartphone sales comes
from carriers like EE. The rest is from Huawei’s online stores and other small retailers online
or offline.
In terms of Huawei’s financial performance, here are some highlights:
 Compared to the market share of Huawei handsets exceeding 5% in 11 key countries,
it possesses less of the UK market. The smartphone exceeded 75 million shipments,
with a growth of 45% YoY (Huawei, 2015).
 In year 2014, Consumer Business revenue is 75.1 billion RMB, which has increased
for 32.6% and becomes nearly 4 times of Enterprise Business revenue. 52% of the
sales revenue came from overseas markets; EMEA region makes an increase of 20.2%
in sales revenue YoY (Huawei, 2015).
 In the past five years, CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) is 12% in the past
five years, with an increase over 20% YoY in 2014. CAGR of operating profit is 2%
(Huawei, 2015).
2.4 Scope
To make it clear, the main business area of this project is smartphone sector in Huawei UK
Consumer BG, while the other two BGs of Huawei UK, as well as other handsets business,
will not be included in the scope.
The industrial supervisor of this project is the Director of Retail & Marketing in
Huawei UK Consumer BG Office, and the aim of Retail & Marketing Team is to improve
localization of Huawei smartphone business and boost its revenue in the UK thereafter. Thus
this project is targeted at devising a feasible marketing solution to improve Huawei
smartphone business localization, by researching literature and investigating Huawei
smartphone retailing process and local market needs.

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The main consulting activities are in reference to Huawei UK smartphone retailing
and marketing; the main retailing channels to investigate are Carphone Warehouse and EE.
2.5 Client business objectives
Based on official announcement and interviews with Huawei UK Consumer BG team, key
business objectives are set as follows:
a) Increase sales portion of higher-end smartphone, revenue increase aiming at 30% YoY
in recent years (Triggs, 2015).
b) Build customer loyalty first and then improve brand recognition in five years altogether;
the UK market share is expected to approach Samsung (around 30%) in the coming 5
years.
c) Manage stock inventory better – upgrade from 4-week stock to 6-week or even 8-week
stock support in two years.
3. Analysis of the initial situation
3.1 Problem and factors to be investigated
“The UK is a tough market. It’s different to other European countries and has its
own system and the UK public are more strict to their smartphone, so our share
is very low.”- Jerry Huang, Huawei’s Director of Marketing Communications
Jerry expressed the great difficulty to saturate the UK market due to hard-to-change
systematic and social culture causes. Localization, by means of adapting products or contents
to eliminate or minimize local sensitivities, is regarded as a critical concept of a multi-
national corporation’s strategy to establish a new market in other countries (GALA, n.d.).
After the preliminary investigation stage, poor smartphone business localization needs to be
addressed for Huawei UK to crack the local market. Table 2 analyses this problem in detail.
Table 2 Huawei smartphone localization problems and factors
Issue statement Poor localization of Huawei smartphone business contributes to
considerably low brand awareness and market share of the UK.
Objective Localize Huawei smartphone business in the UK, in terms of products,
people, and business activities.
Current situation Huawei smartphones design not catering to local taste contributes to low
market share in past 4 years. Services and other business activities need to
be localized as well.
Desired situation Well-localized Huawei smartphone business takes a large market share
approaching Samsung, becoming the second or even the first best-selling
Android smartphone brand in the UK.

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Measure Percentage of brand awareness, market share and sales revenue.
Impact Poor brand awareness has negative impact on Huawei business, not only in
Consumer BG, but also likely in Enterprise BG.
Requirement Enhance interactions with consumers and Huawei brand recognition.
Assumption No revolutionary business change;
Stable relationship with British government.
Constraint Phone industry is fickle and hard to predict, which requires innovation
restlessly and careful planning (Lou, 2014); limited budget.
Benefit tangible increased profit, enhanced brand recognition to all Huawei BGs;
intangible customer value built and potential business expansion
The fishbone diagram below (see Figure 4) illustrates potential issue drivers to be
investigated. All factors reflect dimensions of poor localization, which leads to current low
sales revenue in the UK. Detailed explanation is given in Table 3. Note retailing business
process involving Huawei staff, sales and field force will be depicted in Section 5.
Figure 4 Issue drivers
Table 3 Issue driver depiction
Factor Description
Environment 1) Apple and Samsung have good customer loyalty and brand recognition,
which persuades people from buying other brands; 2) Huawei smartphones,
originated from Chinese culture may have clash with UK culture; 3)
Relationship between Huawei enterprise and British government can impact
Huawei’s business development.
Product & Products’ design, price, quality and some other factors can directly impact

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services sales, so do services: Presales (shelf display, product demonstration) and
aftersales (warranty and home delivery)
Management Huawei’s strategic marketing planning and tactics can impact sales, such as
cooperation with network operators, and smartphone segmentations.
People Huawei employees, agents, field forces and Carphone/EE sales all have the
ability to impact sales; even communications among them can impact as well.
IT
applications
IT systems people use can affect sales by influencing information exchange.
For example, breach of feedback chain will prolong delivery time and make
customers step away.
IT
infrastructure
Cloud data centre and networks, underpinning Huawei smartphone’s Cloud
service and mobile contract, can affect people’s purchasing behaviour.
3.2 Research context, project plan and risks
The research content structure is shown in Table 4. The research will try to achieve a
business-IT alignment by looking into the activities which span the whole enterprise
architecture in the smartphone sector. Core marketing business activities (products, services,
brands) as well as information systems and infrastructure are the main themes of Huawei
smartphone business localization. Some other localization activities, such as staffing and joint
innovation, though not listed in the table below, will be discussed as well. All layers should
be geared toward understanding locale-specific consuming preferences and satisfying market
needs; localization can provide a durable competitive edge for product manufacturers (Rigby
& Vishwanath, 2006). Project plan is shown in the Figure 5.
Table 4 Research content structure
Objectives improve localization of Huawei smartphone business in the UK
Business
layer
(retailing)
Smartphone products
 Design
 Performance
 Pricing
 Promotion
Services
 Enquiry
 Delivery
 Repair
 Feedback
Huawei brand
 Advertising
 Sponsorship
 Interactions
 CSR
Information
systems
 Phone APPs,
 Huawei’s
systems,
 Carphone’s Pie
& Pin point,
 etc.
 Field force’s
Team Haven,
 Huawei’s
systems,
& Pin point
 Huawei’s
systems
& Pin point
 Field force’s
Team Haven
IT
infrastructure
 Huawei’s Cloud data centre,
 Huawei’s telecom networks.

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Figure 5 Project timeline
However, there are some risks or issues existing in the project work. First,
quantitative data collected via Internet may be not correct; some findings by interviewing
different stakeholders may be conflicting with each other. Second, due to the small consumer
questionnaire sample amount (approximately 80), the analysis result has its limitations which
may include some unnoticeable errors. Third, field investigation only covers Reading and the
great London area, which is hard to reflect all the regions of the UK. Fourth, due to data
confidentiality, not all the sales data is available from Huawei, so the analysis result may be
partial.
4. Research Approach
4.1 Intellectual challenge
There are several intellectual challenges conducting the research work.
First of all, it is important to step back and think about cultural differences between
China and Britain, because they exert influences on product design, customers’ purchasing
behaviour, interpersonal communication among local employees and expatriates, and
executives’ decision-making (Guirdham, 2011). Successful overseas market entry and a good
perception of culture difference are inseparable.
Secondly, recent years have witnessed a massive shift in the global smartphone
landscape: plenty of emerging manufacturers caused mass disruption, and profit margins
follow a similar track (CCS, 2014). Due to the lower entrance barrier and more dynamic and
fierce competition of the smartphone industry, it is hard to predict Huawei smartphones’
future situation in the UK market, let alone finding similar practices elsewhere which could
be seamlessly and successfully applied here.
Thirdly, the dynamic nature of Huawei’s business development increases the
complexity of the research. For example, accelerating B2C business in recent years strategic

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planning may contribute to potential business portfolio expansion. Emerging technologies,
such as wearable technologies may be a substitute of smartphone.
Finally, how to collect and process large data effectively in a multi-faceted
application domain is another challenge.
4.2 Research methodology and techniques
Due to the constraints of freelance consultant and the scope of the marketing project,
interpretation/explanation will be adopted as the main research paradigm. Most of data
gathering work will be based on interview and field investigation; retailing process modelling
takes an inductive (facts to model) validation approach. Another smaller portion of customer-
oriented data will be collected via consumer questionnaire. Theoretical work is based on
literature review in forms of topic case study. Table 5 summarizes the details.
In order to produce credible research result, two criteria for data gathering are set as
below:
1) Be more accurate – make the most of official announcement rather than second-hand
data; use Huawei publications and formal authorities’ data in priority. Besides, set a
good sample size (at least greater than 60) for consumer questionnaire;
2) Be more specific and create persuasive report of good readability, such as achieving a
balance of quantitative (e.g.: numerical type analysis of questionnaire results) and
qualitative data (e.g.: verbal answer of some interview questions).
Table 5 Data gathering methods
Approach To whom Data needs to gather
Interview Huawei UK Consumer
BG employees, field
force team, sales and
consumers
Local marketing strategy, latest tactics applied or
will be applied in the UK market, and interviewees’
views/feelings
Field
investigation
Carphone sales, EE
sales, field force team
Retailing processes, information exchange, and sales’
perceptions of Huawei brand and its smartphones
Shadow work Field force team Retailing processes, training, information exchange,
people management
Questionnaire,
interview
Potential smartphone
buyer in the UK market
Customers’ thought and feelings, such as
expectations and preference towards smartphones,
especially about Huawei brand.
Literature
review
All relevant about the project topic, especially what
Samsung and iPhone did on localization

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5. Analysis
5.1 Strategy analysis
Structure, culture and business of Huawei are shaped by strategy. As the core values of
Huawei point out, it exists to serve customers, whose demands are the driving forces behind
its continuous improvement. It also sets out the direction for its business development which
focuses on customer-centric innovations and cross-cultural collaboration (Huawei, 2015).
Huawei focuses on creating a better connected world by continuously innovating and
optimizing user experience. Moreover, Huawei is updating its production focus by laying
more strategic emphasis on Enterprise and Consumer BGs. Since 2010, Huawei has followed
an “ABC” strategy of “growing average revenue per user (APRU)”, which reflects Huawei’s
intention to include more end-to-end services rather than simply products; Huawei plans to
invest more on emerging technologies like cloud computing and video, as well as to reduce
product prices further (Ahrens, 2013). In the meantime, Huawei promotes “Glocalization”,
which stands for an effective combination of globalization and localization. As for consumer
business, Huawei aims to become one of the world leaders in smartphones.
SWOT approach is used to conduct external and internal strategy regarding to
Huawei smartphone business in the UK (see Figure 6). Most of factors introduced facilitate
localization, but some aspects, such as culture difference and high demand of financial cost
may hamper localization. With reference to SO/WT analysis, measures should be taken to
increase Huawei brand exposure. In the meantime, it is necessary to minimize perception of
differentials between Huawei products and British consumers’ expectations. Moreover, some
concerns, such as public worriess about data security, should be taken care to mitigate
potential risks.
Internal Strengths
 Board support and sizeable
investment underpinned by
swift profit growth YoY
 History and success experiences
in other overseas market, such
as Malaysia and Germany
 Superior organisation structure
enables balance between
centralized and decentralized
management
 A good mix of local
employment and expatriates
Weaknesses
 Rare commercial exposure
contributes to low brand
awareness in the UK
 Immense culture difference
between Huawei brand and British
society hampers localization, for
instance, smartphone design
mismatches the local taste
 Outsourcing retailing and sales
training reflects out of control
(e.g. unmotivated people and poor
performance)

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unleashes execution power
 Strong R&D capability supports
product innovation
 Affordable technologies
 High cost and long term to execute
localization
External Opportunities
 Good relationships with British
government and local carriers
 Increasing mobility and greater
demand for connection
 Remaining influence of credit
crunch encourages people
looking for cheaper products
other than Apple and Samsung
 Mixed consumers from various
ethnicity may facilitate word-of-
mouth recommendation
 Technological advancement
enables brand communication
Threats
 Dynamic and fierce competition in
the smartphone industry,
especially strong competitors like
Apple and Samsung
 Though technically quite capable,
still bear the stigma of Chinese
made poor quality.
 US government’s claim about
security risk by using Huawei
service may cause public worries
(ISC, 2013)
 Localization may devalue the
brand and increase management
difficulty
Positive Negative
Figure 6 SWOT analysis
5.2 Culture analysis
It is assumed that the majority of the potential buyers in the UK smartphone market are
British. Thus having a solid understanding of the UK culture is essential for Huawei to
provide better user-friendly smartphones to local consumers. Moreover, another important
aspect of localization is local employment, which indicates that culture also plays an
important role in interpersonal communications between colleagues. Table 6 adopts
Hofstede’s Culture Dimensions to analyse the difference between two countries. To minimize
culture difference in efficient management, regional offices should be made the most of, as
they understand local culture and support responsiveness of local activities.
Table 6 Culture difference between the UK and China (The Hofstede Centre, 2015)
Value
Dimension
UK
Score
China
Score
Reflections Tip
Power
Distance
35 80
British society believes
people should be equally
treated, while Chinese accepts
inequalities more easily.
Be cautious of polarized
subordinate-superior
relationship. Involve more
people in decision making

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Individualism 89 20
UK is highly individualistic,
private and diversified, while
China is highly collectivist
where people act in groups
Pay more attention to
product/service personalization
Masculinity 66 66
Both of British and Chinese
societies are masculine
societies – highly success
oriented.
Produce smartphones of good
quality. Set KPIs to assess
success in the market
periodically
Uncertainty
avoidance
35 30
Chinese are slightly more
comfortable than British in
ambiguous situations and
change
Use performance evaluation
mechanism. Do not impose
rules or structure unnecessarily
Long term
orientation
51 87
China has a very pragmatic
culture, but British culture
cannot determine a dominant
preference.
Make swift adaptions during
localization
5.3 Retailing process modelling
Figure 7 Retail process modelling
A conceptual retail process model for Huawei Ascend series smartphone is developed as
Figure 7. Huawei China ships smartphones to Huawei UK; Huawei UK sends most of Huawei
phones to distributors/retailers, such as Carphone and carriers (they are responsible for both
distribution and retail), and a small portion to field force team via agent for training use.

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Consumers buy Huawei smartphones from retailers, but need to get aftersales service from
Huawei UK by contacting Huawei service centre, because Carphone does not offer aftersales
service for Huawei due to the contract. If retailers run out of stock, order demands will be sent
back all the way to Huawei China. On the other hand, twice outsourcing, namely agent and
field force, are used to provide training/product demonstration to sales and collect shelf
display information.
The retail mode for Honor series is different, as Honor smartphones are only available
on Amazon.uk and Vmall.eu selling by Huawei. Internet retailing does not have to involve
three bodies in dotted boxes shown in Figure 7.
By interviewing sales, field forces and consumers, some issues are listed below, in
terms of people, product/service and information exchange, etc. These issues should be dealt
with when devising solutions.
 Lack of brand recognition. Less than one third of customers visiting Carphone
Warehouse stores know Huawei brand, even though some have bought Huawei products
before. It cannot be excluded that sales are more willing to promote Apple and Samsung
phones because it’s easier. What is worse, EE sells many Huawei manufactured but EE
branded products, which is not good for demonstrating brand identity.
 Little commercial exposure. Rare ads, few promotions, few posters. This phenomenon
results from Huawei’s rational investment in commercial campaigns; Huawei is more
willing to sponsor nationwide events rather than put up TV ads.
 Limited customer selection. Only 8 smartphone models or even fewer are available for
customers to choose from in retailers’ stores.
 Unattractive design of smartphone UI. The user interface design of Huawei
smartphones is not as professional as Samsung and iPhone, and the male-oriented style
does not attract female customers in the UK. In general, local consumers love brighter
screen display and bigger icons.
 Unmotivated people. Field force team only consists of 16 people, but have to cover over 100
Carphone stores. Moreover, same salary for different labour makes team member unmotivated.
 Inefficient information exchange. The information exchange cycle between Huawei and
retailers/agent is time-consuming, generally monthly. There is no particular feedback module
in Carphone’s information systems, and field force normally don not bother themselves to fill
in the feedback blank.
 Poor stock management. Occasionally no in-time supply (1 week) leads to consumer
stepping away. Huawei’s poor market estimation and inefficient information exchange are
main contributing factors.

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 Poor shelf display. Less than 5 live demos/dummies on average are displayed on
Carphone store shelves; some stores even display zero. Carphone shelf display is not as
visual-appealing and user-friendly as EE’s.
 Repair service is a complaint. Generally Carphone Geek Squad offer smartphone
aftersales service for brands which provides 2 year warranty, like SAMSUNG and SONY,
but Huawei Ascend customers need to contact Huawei by themselves, and only 1 year
warranty.
5.4 Successful cases of Huawei smartphone business
This section will review some successful business cases of Huawei smartphones, either in
domestic or international markets. Hopefully, by analysing effective solutions, some home-
grown strategies or successful localization approaches could be adapted and used in the UK
market.
1) Huawei smartphone business in China
Challenges:
When Huawei was fairly new to the smartphone market, capturing market share was its
biggest challenge, especially in a market where the number of players is big. In order to
change the situation of slow growth, exploring channels to get to target customers becomes a
crucial task to achieve.
Solution:
At the very beginning, before smartphone era, Huawei cooperated with China Telecom,
spreading out cheap but reliable low-end feature phones to every part of China, especially
rural areas, to win nation-wide brand awareness. Mao Zedong’s philosophy – occupying the
countryside first is Huawei’s first business strategy, as big cities are already well treated by
multinational corporations (MNCs). After gaining a solid customer base, Huawei gradually
shifted to high-quality product strategy by promoting “Make It Possible”. In year 2011,
Huawei adopted a disruptive e-commerce strategy via Honor and Vmall. While Ascend series
travels across traditional distributors and dealers before reaching consumers, Honors series is
only available online mainly via Vmall.com. Fantastic price-performance ratio and customer-
centric services help Huawei expand market share.
Before launching Mate 7 earlier, Huawei worked with iClick, a digital marketing
company, to identify and segment their potential target customers by demographic data from
campaigns raised by Huawei, and then convey advertising messages to segments through
different platforms. As a result, Huawei achieved an increasing audience pool, with average
CTR (Click-through Rate) over 32.0% (Hsieh, 2015).

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2) Huawei smartphone business in Malaysia
Challenges:
Huawei is motivated for international expansion. Mature Internet/infrastructure condition,
together with multi-racial society in Malaysia offers chances for in-culture marketing.
However, at early entry time, low brand awareness among customers has been regarded as the
primary challenge for Huawei to tackle.
Solution:
Huawei sticks to the concept of “localized operation”. Huawei integrates itself with local
society by multiple ways, of which the most important is local recruitment. Over 90% of
employees in Huawei Malaysia are local residence (China Daily, 2011). Particularly, Huawei
hires local customer service team that is able to handle 3 major languages in Malaysia to
lessen communication breakdowns. Huawei also keeps partnerships with local marketplace
and logistic companies to create demand and ensure quick supply.
Since 2011, by way of introducing a great line-up of mobile devices which cater to
local people’s needs and lifestyles, Huawei Malaysia has steadily built its presence in the
local consumer market. After forming a word-of-mouth recommendation, Huawei selected
Malaysia the first stop out of China to implement Vmall, delivering value through products
(Honor serious smartphone) and service (Vmall.my). 16 service centres were built in the
country, including collection points. In recent years, Huawei is expanding its presence in
Malaysia by establishing 100 brand stores and 500 promotional kiosks at key market centres
(Lumpur, 2014). Moreover, Huawei is trying to establish its presence in local telco packages.
Furthermore, Huawei attaches much importance to cooperation with local
governments and institutions. For example, in year 2011, Huawei Malaysia signed
agreements with Malaysian government and 10 local universities, planning to train over 10
thousand ICT talents within 5 years (Li, 2012). By assuming social responsibilities, Huawei
has got a decent local reputation.
3) Huawei smartphone in Arab World
Huawei has become the new favourite except Apple in Arabian countries. Table 7 analyses
Huawei’s 4P strategy in that region, based on research of Saif and Aimin (2015). There are
roughly equal portions of male and female customers. Young people (25-44 years old) make
up the main consumer group (46%), and most of the smartphones are for multiple uses, such
as making calls, internet surfing and gaming. Huawei well satisfied the local demands.

17
Table 7 4P marketing strategy in Arab World
Arab World Consider Huawei does
Product Factors affecting purchase, listed in
descending order of importance: Price
(over 50%), appearance, brand, design,
ease of use, size & weight, camera,
battery life, storage & memory, operating
system, screen size
equip with dual-core 1.5Hz
800 million pixels camera
720p HD video recording
1930mAh battery
No-lock dual system partition and
cloud services
Price Promote privatization and attract foreign
investment
Regional development gaps leads to price
flexibility
Target moderate-income group
Offer larger price elasticity
Place Stores of retailers/carriers and online
stores
Set up brand stores
Promotion Subversive changes in design
Interactions with customers
Advertising, maybe in movies and TV
series.
Planned obsolescence – rapid upgrade
of products
Viral & social marketing
Tweeting/posting/blogging to increase
consumer interaction
Internet ads
5.5 Competitor analysis
Since this project aims to produce a practical marketing solution, it is important to analyse the
localization techniques which are successfully adopted by Huawei’s competitors in home land
or overseas markets. Samsung is regarded as Huawei’s No.1 competitor, iPhone has a
considerable market share in every regional market, and Xiaomi has the potential to be
Huawei’s fierce competitor. Thus these three will analysed in this section.
1) Samsung
Samsung adopts a traditional distribution model to sell smartphones in retail stores. Samsung
regards itself as a brand owner, behind which Samsung spends massive marketing dollars to
wide spread its brand. Samsung strikes competitors with the weapon of “first-of-the kind”
technology embedded in beautifully-crafted premium smartphones. For instance, S6 Edge
was launched with world’s first curved display, with stylishly innovative wearable products
like Gear S in product sets.
In terms of localization, Samsung (2013) advocates “Design Globally, Adapted
Locally”. It encourages diverse and independent strategic development of regional offices to

18
localize their activities to meet different regional and cultural needs. Samsung set up Lifestyle
Research Lab to analyse people’s evolving habits and aspirations to determine which areas for
innovation, and pass research insights on to Product Innovation Team and Design Centres.
To illustrate more about Samsung localization efforts, here will use the French market
case. In spite of late entry, Samsung outperformed competitors like Sony and Nokia. Samsung
did not mark itself as a foreign company with noticeable culture difference. Appealing to
local desire for artistic design, Samsung held art exhibitions displaying works of art in high
definition on 3D TV sets, together with other Samsung products on display. Apart from
public campaigns like this, Samsung particularly catered to local market by identifying the
most downloaded apps (e.g. apps for navigating art museums) and releasing operating system
optimizations (e.g. hugely successful “bada” with 2000 local apps in 6 months) (CSOFT, n.d.).
Samsung rounded out a comprehensive set of localization initiatives, ranging from marketing,
producing to hiring, giving the brand much more authenticity and even a sense of French
ownership. In Southeast Asia, Samsung develops apps and sends out freebies just for that
region as well.
As for trend, Samsung (2015) reported that, in year 2014, sales and profits weakened
as performance turned poor, and growth was stagnant. Nonetheless, Samsung maintained
global No.1 leadership in smartphone markets with 24.7% global market share.
2) Apple
Apple is renowned for its quality, innovative design and easy-to-use features. Besides, great
customer in-store experiences undoubtedly contribute to Apple mania. Apple, in the phone
business, appears to be very selective when it comes to channel distributors/retailers who are
allowed to represent Apple products, as a large share of sales is from Apple stores.
What Apple does particularly right in localization is software applications and
advertising. 1) Ahead of industry, iPhone supports international/localization. It refers to the
process of adapting IOS/APPs to different languages, regions, and cultures where the user
resides. The iPhone is localized to 31 different languages and available in 94 different
countries (Apple, 2015). IOS Apps also support localization. Developers can specify the app’s
availability in different territories, referring to local market needs. Getting applications
localized pays back with global exposure and access to millions more potential users. 2)
Apple reaped in the rewards with its localized advertising strategy. It always sensibly
examines the culture modes of different countries before launching campaigns, and concludes
with right-tuned ads which can successfully attract consumers to iPhones. For example, the
Indian version of iPhone ad blends in the Indian context, where the bride and groom are
indulging in a chat right before their delightful traditional Indian wedding. The immensely
watchable ad demonstrates iPhone 6’s great features in camera and screen display.

19
3) Xiaomi
Xiaomi, as a strong Chinese competitor, utilizes hunger marketing strategy to disrupt
smartphone market with e-commerce. Xiaomi positions itself as an Internet company (the
logo “mi” stands for “Mobile Internet”) rather than a phone brand or vendor. Xiaomi takes on
market with “value for money” smartphones, whose high-end specs for low prices creates
consumers’ fervour (MI fans) for the company.
Dubbed as “China’s Apple”, just as what Apple does with iOS, iTunes and App Store,
Xiaomi has built its own ecosystem with MIUI which is constructed on top of Android and
can be localized. MI fans play an important role in Xiaomi’s crowd-sourcing and OS/app
localization, as most of the design themes available on the platform are contributed by MI
fans.
To illustrate a bit further, Xiaomi took the following localization measures to win
more market share of India, the first stop out of China:
1) Design smartphones exclusively for the Indian market (named “Mi 4i”) and unveil
new products in India.
2) Xiaomi sold part of its smartphones in physical stores as India has many areas where
Internet is not well-developed.
3) Xiaomi’s teaming up with Flipkart, an e-commerce company headquartered in India,
gave Xiaomi access to multiple platforms and win local trust.
4) Xiaomi decided to move Indian users’ data to a localized data centre which will be
built in 2015 to dispel some privacy concerns and speed up Xiaomi service
performance (GD, 2014).
5) Xiomi’s manufacturer, Foxconn, started to assemble handsets in Indian in early 2015,
and offers Indian-specific upgraded smartphones (WIRED, 2015)
Before dipping its toe into the US and western market, Xiaomi has hired a super star
– Hugo Barra, the well-known former VP and product spokesman of Google's Android.
Xiaomi believes, employing an attractive ambassador with an international face will enhance
Xiaomi’s influence during its international expansion.
5.6 Consumer analysis
Last but the most important, local consumers should be well understood, because their
demands are the very initiatives for smartphone localization and the key to business success.
This section will give a UK smartphone usage and demographic roundup as well as
summarized analysis of the collected consumer questionnaires (details available in Appendix
B).

20
Figure 8 shows an overall rise in smartphone ownership by iPhone and Android and
Windows phone manufacturers. Whilst iPhone remains the leadership in the UK market,
Android has significantly closed the gap with Apple over the festive period, rising to 31% in
Q1 2015. Across all age ranges, only the over 65’s show clear signs of reluctance with a
distinct drop in ownership equal to or below 20%; compared to female, older men are slightly
more likely to purchase a smartphone. Groups aged in the 15-35 range show very strong take-
up staggering 90%. Ipsos (2015) also reported that various socioeconomic groups appear to
share a fairly even ownership of smartphones.
Figure 8 Ownership of smartphones (Ipsos, 2015)
Hereafter, this section will analyse the consumer questionnaire results. Consumers are
far more likely to make an offline purchase (around 71.8%) than online, which matches IDC’s
research result (see Figure 9).
Figure 9 Method of smartphone purchase (IDC, cited in Weareapps, 2014)

21
Social grade is often used as a discriminatory tool for smartphone purchasing power
and later consumptions. Table 8 concludes the relationships between socioeconomic groups
and monthly mobile tariff consumption. In general, individuals with higher income or
education tend to be more economically active.
Table 8 Monthly mobile tariff spent by different socioeconomic groups
Figure 10 shows the top 6 factors that affect people’s purchasing. Except great
consumer interest for affordable prices, consumers in the UK want more engaging experience
with brands; this well explains Huawei’s difficulty to penetrate the UK smartphone market. In
addition, performance and design also impact consumers’ purchase decisions.
Figure 10 Top 6 factors that affect smartphone purchase in the UK
Figure 11 prioritises the most-often-considered smartphone features when making a
purchase. Screen and display comes first. Netbiscuits (2015) reported that, despite global
trend to larger screens, 4.5 to 4.9 inch segment gains the largest traffic share in the UK for
now. In terms of resolution, 960*640 is most used dimension in the UK, sharing 26.11% of
the traffic; 320-339 PPI (pixels per inch) is the dominant, though Steve Jobs claimed that 326
PPI is the optimum resolution (Netbiscuits, 2015). Online data, camera and battery come
afterwards. People also desire for smooth operation of systems/applications, network and
excellent multimedia playing performance. Other features, including gaming, customization
and Cloud are expected to some extent. In a nutshell, consumers in this more developed
3.33%
10.00%
14.00%
15.33%
16.67%
20.00%
Service
Design
Quality
Performance
Brand
Price

22
market, appreciate more advanced smartphones incorporating value added features and post-
purchase services provided by the manufacturer (e.g. system backup, cloud, etc.).
Figure 11 Most expected smartphone features
There are some other findings from the questionnaire collection.
 Luckily, nearly one half of the local customers have ever heard of Huawei. However,
over 2/3 cannot correctly pronounce “Huawei”, and they stated that this hard-to-
pronounce brand name is likely to make them step away from the products.
 A majority group of people (43%) conduct research by searching information online
(e.g. online stores, bloggers, manufacturers’ websites, etc.) before making a purchase.
Besides, a noticeable portion (29%) admit that word-of-mouth recommendation
impacts their purchase decisions.
 50% of people will spend less than 2 weeks on research before buying a smartphone,
and another considerable partition of 20% will take more than 4 weeks to do research.
 Unfortunately, for most local consumers, Huawei, together with
Sony/Microsoft/HTC, belongs to “currently would not like to buy” category, while
Apple is the “prefer buying” brand and Samsung is in the consideration list.
 People desire very much for the aftersales service, such as warranty, online support,
accessories and Cloud.
 In terms of P8, a latest high-end smartphone of Huawei, the features people like most
are listed here as priority descending in order: 8 core processor, camera, screen
display, surface design and ultra-connection. Besides, as for the improvement
suggestions, most people vote for the Huawei brand awareness, with a smaller
number vote for P8 itself (e.g. design boxy, sound performance, PPi).

23
6. Solution Synthesis
Based on the analysis above, two possible solutions can be synthesized to improve
localization and resolve current problems.
1) marketing-oriented solution.
Since most local consumers worry about brand awareness, the most direct way is to
put up advertising campaigns. The possible channels to put ads from feedbacks collected
include prime time TV ads, social websites (Facebook and Twitter), and metro newspaper, etc.
Moreover, as young people possess greatest passion for high technologies, it is feasible to
introduce some commercial campaigns into the university/college campuses. Sponsoring
nation-wide events, such as Reading music festivals and sports matches, will also win
potential consumers.
During marketing, it is important to match activities with different customer
segmentation. For example, campus consumers seem to favour G family smartphones, and
social websites may capture more traffic by emphasizing on only-available-on-line Honor
series, as they both attract digital and youth market.
2) product-oriented solution.
Product is the strongest weapon to compete in the smartphone industry. Products of
homogeneity can easily be rejected in the handset market. This solution will cover multiple
facets of products, including quality, pricing, promotion and service. By investing R&D
dollars to produce smartphones catering to local needs, and streamlining retailing process and
information systems to achieve management effectiveness, Huawei smartphone business can
be localized.
7. Proposed Solution
Huawei is quite picky about spending money. Huawei executives are calm future-oriented
investors, and they believe that only by presenting customers innovative good-quality
products will people love the Huawei brand (details available in Appendix A). Because the
marketing-oriented solution requires a lot of marketing dollars, Huawei is not likely to favour
the solution. In fact, they never allocated big marketing dollars for a big-bang launch.
Moreover, though intensive marketing will provide Huawei immense brand exposure in a
short time, it is not a wise decision considering long-time development, as Huawei currently
does not have a secured leadership in unique design or impeccable innovation in the
smartphone industry. Therefore product-oriented solution is preferred.
Table 8 lists detailed recommendations towards localization, with potential costs or
risks noted in the last column. In general, it focuses on localization of products, but also gives
insights of localization about sourcing and staffing. Part of home-grown strategies can be
used in the UK as well. For example, Huawei UK has already adopted the hybrid retailing

24
model as Huawei China did. Moreover, once condition is mature, Huawei UK can even set up
its own brand store/experience centre, skipping distributors and retailers, just like Samsung or
Apple stores; by this way, Huawei can enlarge sales quantity by having a better control of the
final sales price of products and better present products to customers.
Table 8 Proposed recommendations for business activities
ID Detailed recommendation Cost/Risk
BA1 According to Pull-based Model (Sieving, Murayama &
Naarendorp, 1994), investigate consumers’ needs first: what specs
local consumers want from a smartphone and how much they
would like to spend
Cost for marketing
survey or forum
campaign
BA2 Analyse the feedback and send results back to UK R&D for local
adaptations and China for manufacture
Potential
intellectual
property leakage
BA3 Gradually stop building devices for partners and build a brand by
self instead. Manage the proliferation of connections to the local
retailers. For example, amend contracts with Carphone to include
aftersales service, as this weighs much in western markets.
BA4 Improve Huawei UK official websites to support online real-time
customer service and e-guide documents downloading. Set
systematic plan to acquire traffic to the sites.
Web system
upgrade cost
BA5 Launch creative campaigns like “Guess the Price” prior to new
Honor product launch as Huawei Malaysia and China do. Besides,
it is important to have a credible estimation of the sales number
before launch in order to have an edge in fulfilment speed. Thus
information systems should be rationalized accordingly.
Possible
information system
upgrade cost
BA6 Sell accessories in the UK market, as 72% of the respondents
believe that changing mobile phone cases, pendants and
applications can effectively meet different needs of male and
female users, though Huawei smartphone design is more male-
oriented.
Shipping cost
BA7 Launch numbered/high-end series of smartphones with local-
consumer-want technologies embedded or OS/APPs locally
customized
R&D cost, shipping
cost, manufacture
cost.
BA8 Set up Huawei brand stores/experience centres enabling sales
without distributors and retailers, and improving customer
experience by aftersales service
Physical store rent
and refurbish cost,
recruitment cost.
BA9 Outsource to launch sensible marketing campaign, assure
consumers perceive the brand in a desired way (minimize language
Outsource cost.
Potential risk of

25
and cultural difference). Ads can be put on social websites in forms
of micro-films coupled with witty lines, which can inflame strong
resonance from young consumers.
losing control
BA10 Set up local joint-innovation centre, as customization needs local
experiment. Product marketing team is ought to collaborate very
closely with R&D staff so as to react nimbly to customer
demands (because geographical separation is detrimental).
Besides, joint venue not only is a practice of endogenous
innovation, but also helps spread the brand.
Venues rent and
refurbish cost.
Potential
intellectual
property leakage
BA11 Launch press of new smartphones could select big English cities as
locations, such as London and Birmingham.
BA12 Set up Cloud data centre for customer personalisation use, such as
personal email account, system backup, etc.
Data centre cost
8. Improvement Plan
In summary, in this information technology era, with high personnel/material global liquidity
and unprecedentedly fierce competition, “Global-orientation” and “localization” concept in
corporate commercial practice should be highly uniform. Localization does not only mean
local employment, local taxed, but means more about products/services satisfying local needs
and higher level of local cooperation.
Figure 12 shows a roadmap indicating the chosen solution, timeframe, sequence and
implementation plan, which links with recommendations by item ID in Section 7. In general,
this is a dynamic two-way localization plan, which involves feedback and adjustments. With
reference to Pull-based Model, to identify local needs is the first priority, so 1 year is
allocated to pre-marketing business activities to define local needs and offerings. Systematic
marketing plan is necessary as it guides the direction of marketing activities in future years.
Afterwards, retailing processes and information systems and infrastructures should be
improved accordingly to reach a business-IT alignment. For example, once obtained a strong
customer base, data centre need to be set up improve post-sale services, like Cloud.
Figure 12 Improvement roadmap

26
Market share (or similar indexes like unit shipment to UK or sales revenue), brand
awareness, and employee satisfaction rate, will be adopted as three main measurements to
assess the success of improvement and make adjustments if necessary. Therefore, except from
periodically sales report, after executing one cycle of the localization plan, surveys towards
local customers and internal employees need to be spread out in the UK market and Huawei
offices.
To sum up, this project will help improve Huawei smartphone business in the UK,
and thereby increase its regional sales. However, risks pointed out in previous sections should
be cautiously coped with. For example, core technologies should be restricted to shift from
China to UK joint innovation centres, as they would face potential intellectual property
leakage. Besides, due to the limitations of the freelance consulting project, such as budget and
limited engagement with stakeholders, analysis results might contain mistakes.
Word count: 8000

27
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Appendix A – Interview Notes
Part 1: Interviewing Sidney Sun, the Head of Retail & Marketing in Huawei Consumer BG
UK Office
Q: What’s the position of Huawei smartphone business in the whole Huawei’s business
spectrum? Is there any cooperation with other BGs?
A: Huawei has three BGs: Network, Enterprise and Consumer BG. The main role of Huawei
smartphone business is brand demonstration or public relationship. Smartphone is an
impeccable tool to interact with consumers because people use phones frequently in everyday
life. Huawei smartphone business is growing well right now with flagships products selling
well. Three BGs share the same customers to a certain extent, like carriers. That means
unavoidable cooperation among them. Huawei pursues sustainable development by
concerting and unleashing power of all three BGs.
Q: What is the strategy of Huawei smartphones in the UK market?
A: Huawei has no systematic strategic plans for that. In general, Huawei emphasizes more on
brand healthy development. Huawei is picky about spending money; compared to a lot of
advertising, Huawei is more willing to invest in products improvement to enhance user
experience and brand reputation. High-end products is attached more importance in the UK
market, or European markets. In recent years, Huawei releases new high-end smartphones in
European countries, for example, P6 and P8 in London, P7 in Paris and Mate 7 in Berlin.
Q: How about the future investment plan in the phone sector?
A: It is hard to say, because smartphone market possesses rapid changes. For the next one or
two years, Huawei aims to make “the best Android Phone”. In terms of market share, it wants
a similar percentage of the market as Samsung. Samsung is regarded as Huawei’s No.1
competitor now. Huawei would like to invest a lot in R&D to improve products, and also
building its brand by sponsoring some important activities, such as Arsenal Football Cup in
Wembley.
Q: What do you want to do most now to increase local brand recognition, or to improve
localization in other words?
A: Interacting with consumers, or social marketing, to increase brand awareness.
Q: What do you think of current cooperation with Argos, EE, Vodafone, etc.?
A: Argos adopts catalogue selling, which focuses on cheap products. Huawei will gradually
cut cooperation with Argos with no mainstream products available in Argos. EE has some

31
Huawei made but EE branded smartphones at the moment, because EE has a strong customer
base and it is easy for them sell products. However, in the future, OEM mode will be stopped,
and Huawei will expand retailing by its online stores or even physical stores. Huawei will
keep its promise by delivering good-quality products to customers to win market share.
Q: How is the Honor series going on? Is there any intention for Cloud?
A: Honor is available on Amazon.uk, because Vmall is testing run at the moment. Developed
markets like the UK, might not be too much carried away with hunger sell technique, which is
adopted in China. Though Honor has amazing technical capability like really good chips,
double-brands operation may face some pressure. In short term, Huawei uses rent Cloud for
European market. Only when Huawei has a solid customer base in a region will it consider
constructing a Cloud by itself.
Q: Why P8 and P8 max are not available in store at the same time? Why there is always no
inventory for Carphone to sell?
A: P8 max is available on Vmall. Because not so many British customers go crazy for big
screens, it saves money to sell P8 max online. Zero stock sometimes means demands greater
than supply, which is good. The problem results from multiple factors, like market estimation
mechanism, line-of-credit, information exchange, etc.
Q: What do you think of Huawei’s rare commercial exposure like TV ads or posters?
A: Not really. Huawei prefers exposure by sponsorship, like football matches. Huawei would
like to build customer loyalty first, and then to work on popularity.
Q: How is the bundle sale?
A: 25% of revenue from EE stream is for enterprise use.
Part 2: Interviewing Fabio Lima, Carphone Account Manager of Huawei Consumer BG UK
Office
Q: Why does not Huawei offer 2 years warranty as other brands do for phones sold in
Carphone?
A: It is because of budget concern. Huawei offers lower price for similar quality products, this
means lower revenue cannot be used to cover every aspect at the moment.
Q: Is there any choices for shelf display? Why not put window TV ads or product leaflet?

32
A: Huawei chose the Category Capital C Programme, which means in popular locations,
Huawei products in form of nice shelf display. However, Huawei cannot cover all Carphone
stores due to the budgetary contract. The window poster is seasonal and sometimes it’s about
Huawei products.
Q: What channel to spread sales promotion information?
A: Regional manager is responsible for spreading information by weekly meeting. Then
promotion information is passed down chain by chain. Need some information systems for
quick information exchange and feedback maybe.
Q: What do you want to do most to improve local brand recognition?
A: To promote mid-high tier of products. Huawei has several segments for products: Y family
is cheap and used to capture market share, G family means better margin, and P family means
quality and is beneficial to demonstrate Huawei brand.

33
Appendix B – Consumer Questionnaire
Questionnaire on Smartphones in the UK
In this survey, we are interested in what you think and feel about smartphone products,
especially Huawei brand. The survey is carried out anonymous and all the information will
be kept confidential. Remember there is no right or wrong answers. We are only interested in
your honest opinion.
1. What is your gender?
○ Female ○ Male
2. Age
○ <18 ○ 18 – 29 ○ 30 – 44 ○ 45 – 59 ○ 60+
3. What is your nationality? _________________________________
4. What is your profession? _________________________________
5. What is your approximate average yearly income?
○ Less than £20,000 ○ £20,000 - £30,000 ○ £30,000 - £40,000
○ £40,000 - £50,000 ○ £50,000 - £60,000 ○ More than £60,000
6. How much do you spend on mobile smartphone tariffs per month?
○ Less than £5 ○ £5 - £10 ○ £10 - £15 ○ £15 - £20 ○ £20 - £25 ○ £25 - £30
○ £30 - £35 ○ £35 - £40 ○ More than £40
7. Where do you like to buy a smartphone?
○ Online (Argos/Amazon/Carphone Warehouse, etc.)
○ Offline (Carphone Warehouse/EE/Vodafone, etc.)
8. Please select top two factors that impact most when you consider purchasing a
smartphone.
□ Brand □ Price □ Design □ Quality □ Performance
□ Service (delivery, warranty)

34
9. Please select top four major features you consider when buying a smartphone.
□ Screen and display □ Operation systems □ Camera □ Video and audio playing
□ Gaming performance □ Network □ Online data □ Cloud technology
□ Backup, restore and upgrade □ Battery and charger □ Customization □ Email
□ Business applications (news feed, stock, etc.) □ Bluetooth □ Social media
10. Where do you get information about smartphones from? (Please select at least one
option)
□ Internet □ Magazine □ Newspaper □ Leaflet □ Physical stores □ TV
11. Which choice best describes the following brands when you consider to buy a
smartphone?
Prefer buying
One of the
consideration list
Currently would like
not to buy
Apple ○ ○ ○
Samsung ○ ○ ○
Huawei ○ ○ ○
Sony ○ ○ ○
Microsoft ○ ○ ○
HTC ○ ○ ○
12. How do you carry out research before buying a smartphone? (Please select at least one
option)
□ By visiting stores (Carphone warehouse/EE/Vodafone, etc.)
□ By searching information online
□ By talking to friends
□ Other (please specify in the right blank) _________________

35
13. How long will you do research before making a purchase?
○ Less than 1 week ○ 1 - 2 weeks ○ 2 - 3 weeks ○ 3 - 4 weeks
○ More than 4 weeks
14. Which factors will impact your purchase? (Please select at least one option)
□ Ads □ Product reviews □ Bloggers □ Friends
□ Other (please specify in the right blank) _________________
15. Have you heard of Huawei?
○ Yes _________________ (If yes, please specify how you heard about Huawei in the
blank (via user experience/friends/TV/news/ads/Internet/stores).)
○ No (If no, please skip to Question 19.)
16. Have you used Huawei brand smartphone?
○ Yes _________________ (If yes, please specify the Huawei smartphone type in the
blank.)
○ No (If no, please skip to Question 19.)
17. Please rate the Huawei smartphone you've used.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Huawei phone ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
18. Please select the most satisfactory and unsatisfactory factors of Huawei smartphone?
Most satisfactory Most unsatisfactory
Functionality ○ ○
Price ○ ○
Quality ○ ○
Design ○ ○
Online tutorials ○ ○

36
Aftersales service ○ ○
Customization ○ ○
Battery life ○ ○
Connection ○ ○
Performance ○ ○
19. What kind of support/service do you expect from Huawei if you buy a Huawei phone?
□ Online tutorials/support □ Aftersales service □ Promotion □ Cloud service
□ Other (please specify in the blank) _________________
20. How likely would you recommend Huawei brand to a friend or colleague?
○ Extremely likely ○ Very likely ○ Moderately likely ○ Slightly likely
○ Not at all likely
21. Can you pronounce "Huawei" correctly?
○ Yes ○ No
22. What is your first impression of Huawei P8 smartphone?
○ Very positive ○ Somewhat positive ○ Neutral ○ Somewhat negative
○ Very negative
23. Select top two features of P8 that you like most.
□ Camera (light painting, wide angle selfie, director mode, low light shooting)
□ 5.2'' screen
□ Ultra-connection (smart Wi-Fi, signal+, double 4G)
□ 8 core processor & speedy
□ Surface design (thin, square, waterproof)
□ Smartness (screenshot, chat)
□ Service (VIP, promotion)
□ Other (please specify in the blank) _________________

37
24. How would you rate the Huawei P8 smartphone? (10 as most positive)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Huawei P8 ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○
25. How likely would you be to buy Huawei P8?
○ Extremely likely ○ Very likely ○ Moderately likely ○ Slightly likely
○ Not at all likely
26. What do you think Huawei P8 can improve? _________________________________
This is the end of the questionnaire. Thank you very much!

38
Student Experience
Throughout the project journey, I have encountered many problems, ranging from
paper work to engagement with stakeholders. Table 9 shows a summary of my personal
experiences, in terms of problems I met, potential improvements that could have been made,
and reflections.
Table 9 Personal experience log throughout the project
Student Experience Log
Name Jianlan Zhang
Project
Title
Improving Localization of Huawei Smartphones in the UK
Date
Problem/Learning
Point
Potential
Improvement
Reflection (views and feelings vs.
learning point)
22/06 Misunderstanding of
manufacturer and retailer
when discussing project
topic with industrial
supervisor
Do more reading
about smartphone
business
Business Models of Samsung and
Huawei are different: Samsung is
a retailer, but Huawei is a
manufacturer.
22/06 Lack of slides when
presenting consulting
project idea
Prepare slides in real
business
In real business, consultant should
prepare bid proposal when
meeting clients to discuss about
the project roadmap
30/06 When shadowing field
force’s work, they
mistook me as
supervising their work
and worked extremely
hard
Explain the situation
to them and also talk
to people around to
get a more truthful
view
Stakeholders’ misunderstanding of
the situation may impact their
action, which could lead to wrong
data collection in the consulting
project.
01/07 Questionnaire content
design could not be
decided, because
industrial supervisor was
too busy
Phone interviewee to
have a quick talk,
rather than over
concern about
whether interviewee is
available or not
Often, business people are too
busy, and unwilling to be
interviewed. It is very important to
build good customer rapport when
running a consulting project.
10/07 Field investigation only
covers Reading and
London areas (Reading,
Wembley, Croydon,
London)
Should expand field
investigation areas to
get better research
result, if project
budget permits.
When carrying out field
investigation, it is wise to visit
typical sites, such as Wembley
(mixed of people from different
countries).

39
10/07 When collecting data
through field
investigation, EE stores
keep absolutely
confidential about
Huawei smartphone
sales data, while
Carphone are willing to
tell me
Getting Huawei sales
data from Huawei
director is an option.
It is important to keep customers’
information confidential. British
society cares about data security
very much. This culture
phenomenon should be paid
attention to when carrying out
business activities in the future.
14/07 Questionnaire designed
by Survey Monkeys have
to be split into two parts,
because free version only
support ten questions at
maximum.
Withdraw running. Do
some research before
deciding which survey
tool will be used.
Survey tools could vary, in terms
of maximum question number,
multiple devices support, device
MAC address recognition (one
device can only fill one
questionnaire, which tend to be
inapplicable in street survey filling
scenario), etc.
15/07 Cannot submit
questionnaire because of
wrong logic of
questionnaire design
Withdraw running,
test different cases
before re-launching
questionnaire.
Programming logic diagram, like
“switch/case” is helpful to get
questionnaire design logic correct.
Should test all the cases before
running the questionnaire online.
15/07 Cannot submit
questionnaire because I
chose a Chinese survey
tool, which is free and
user friendly, but
maintenance hour
(Chinese midnight) is in
UK daytime.
Pick another time for
data collection.
Should consider about
time difference when
picking the survey
tool.
In consulting project, when using
information systems, it is really
important to consider time
difference, since all
hardware/software have its
maintenance hour, which might
cause inconvenience to other time
zone users.
16/07 Data collected through
interviews with Retail
Director and EE Account
Manager are conflicted
Check Huawei official
website, interview
more people, and take
an unbiased view
Quantitative/qualitative data
collected via interviews might not
be correct. Besides, opinions of
different stakeholders might
conflict with each other due to
different interests.
18/07 Collecting survey data in
Carphone Warehouse is
quite inefficient, because
Buy some little gifts
to win more
customers to fill out
Think about when people have
free time and are more willing to
fill a survey. Places, like parks,

40
customers normally
queue up for service, and
not willing to fill out the
survey.
the survey. and resting benches, may be good
options.
18/07 Survey data collected via
Carphone is biased
because people who like
to buy phones online will
not pop up in physical
stores.
Collect half of the
survey online and the
other half offline. In
addition, in terms of
physical stores, some
data should be
collected from EE and
other stores except
Carphone.
Channels to spread out surveys
will impact the data accuracy. It is
important to think back on
people’s consuming behaviour.
25/07 Literature reviews about
Huawei sometimes have
conflicts with other.
Trace back to original
sources and lay more
emphasis on first-
hand sources.
First-hand sources of information
are often more valuable and more
accurate; adapted news or bloggers
may have some errors. Besides,
official statements, like annual
reports, are very important during
analysis work.
02/08 Happen to find data
documented on paper
lost when moving
accommodation
Try to recall memory,
and get assistance
from colleagues.
It is important to get copies of data
collected, just in case of any
accidents happen.
15/08 Too many dimensions of
survey data, cannot
decide how to analyse,
and what to dig out of it.
Ask client’s
requirements and
analyse data.
Information collection and
analysis should be based on
clients’ business requirements. In
this way, consulting firm can
achieve cost efficiency.
26/08 Project report is finished,
but contact point of
industry client is away
on travel, without any
notice ahead of time.
Call other
interviewees as a
backup reviewer.
Return to former
contact once he/she
comes back. Take
remedial actions if
necessary.
It is important to keep client in
touch at a short and regular pace,
just in case any unpredictable
change. Losing contact point
might mean increasing cost during
real business practice. Besides, it
is important to agree on specific
items and sign contracts before
project kicks off.

final report - Jianlan Zhang

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