On Tuesday, Huawei India confirmed through a press release that it has entered a partnership with India-based Micromax Informatics. The new partnership will allow Huawei to bolster its offline presence in India Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has been selling its smartphones in India since few years, but Huawei entered the Indian market last year.
Huawei India Consumer Business Group Vice-President Rishi Kishor Gupta confirmed to IANS that the company’s Indian wing has partnered with Micromax to launch its smartphones at multi-brand outlets in the country. As far as Honor phones are concerned, it will continue to sell exclusively through online channels. Huawei India Consumer Business Group Head said that company aims to focus on building a robust offline market to cater consumers in urban and rural areas of the country.
While various smartphones like Xiaomi, Samsung, OnePlus have grown their business by focusing on online markets, they are also building offline presence since India has a huge offline market. It is estimated that 70 percent of phone sales are conducted through offline stores.
In 2018, Huawei had partnered with Croma to concentrate for offline sales and later it had also entered a pact with Poorvika Mobiles that has a large chain of stores in South India. By working with Micromax, Huawei India aims to expand its offline presence through a phased plan. The first phase will include major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kochi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Dehradun, Kolkata and Jaipur.
Micromax Informatics, Head of Marketing Deepti Mehra said the company will continue to sell Micromax phones in Micromax brands stores and Huawei will be capitalizing the distribution and retail network. The partnership won’t cannibalize the sales of Micromax handsets because it mainly sells mid-range phones whereas Huawei’s targeted audience are premium phone users.
In April, Huawei India had introduced Huawei P30 Pro flagship phone with Rs. 71,990 (~$1,040) price tag and Huawei P30 Lite upper mid-range phone with a starting price tag of Rs. 19,990 (~$289). The handset is available for purchase through Amazon India as well as Croma stores.
