Huawei has appointed a former Samsung Electronics China executive, Andy Ho, as vice president of its Chinese consumer business division. In the case of Andy, he left Samsung after his contract expired and was not renewed so Huawei do not appear to have poached him from Samsung to run their consumer business division, although we will likely never know the finer details of his appointment. Andy will join Huawei as they are experiencing rapid growth and are the world’s third largest smartphone manufacturer, behind market leader Samsung with Apple in second place, but have made significant progress in the last two years. Huawei’s post covers the Greater China region, including Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Huawei have been on something of a global charm offensive over the last couple of years. In device terms, they have released the Huawei Watch and the Nexus 6P, which have been met with praise. The company has pushed sales into Western markets and has released a number of well received devices into many markets, such as the mid-range Honor 5X. As part of this push, the Chinese business is keen to recruit established and talented individuals from the industry to help drive things forward. Huawei appointed Abigail Sarah Brody, a former Apple creative director, in October 2015. Abigail Sarah worked on the user interface of the first generation iPhone. We’ve also seen earlier appointments from Samsung, such as Yang Zhe in 2012, who joined Huawei as the Chief Marketing Officer after leaving Samsung working in a similar post. Huawei is working hard to bring a great product portfolio to the market and have tailored their devices to the particular markets they are aiming for.
As well as their charm offensive and indeed one of the reasons why they have been able to aggressively expand into Western markets, Huawei have also built up a comprehensive patent portfolio and have actively defended this. Earlier in the year the Chinese company filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics for alleged 4G network patent infringement and demanding approximately $12 billion in compensation. In return, Samsung sued Huawei in July for alleged patent infringement for the same amount. Samsung’s case against Huawei revolves around the transmission of information in devices such as digital cameras, including picture storage solutions. We would hope that these cases can be solved in a relatively small amount of time and outside of the courtroom; electronics manufacturer executives are surely better equipped to develop new products rather than fight a legal battle.