Marketing Plan for HUAWEI P-Series Phone

1. Executive Summary执行摘要

近年来，世界经济的发展越来越全球化和一体化。在当今世界，谁能更快更好地融入全球市场，谁就能在全球市场上获得先发优势。随着国内市场的饱和，华为将目光转向了国际市场。产品全球化可以考虑公司的市场和资源配置，提高产品竞争力，增强行业竞争地位，实现公司整体利益最大化。为了迅速占领国际市场，我们制定了以下营销计划。

In recent years, the development of the world economy has become more global and integrated.  In today's world, who can integrate into the global market faster and better will be able to get the first mover advantage in the global market. HUAWEI turn its attention to the international market with the saturation of domestic market. Product globalization can consider the company's market and resource distribution, improve product competitiveness, enhance industry competitive position, and maximize the company's overall interests. To quickly occupy the international market, we prepared the following marketing plan.

First we have used PEST analysis to performed external analysis of HUAWEI. Then we conducted internal analysis. We believe the business strategy for HUAWEI is mass market differentiation as HUAWEI is target mass market rather than premium market. Furthermore, the advanced technology of HUAWEI make it in differentiation position as the entry barrier is high. In addition, we had the BCG analysis to HUAWEI current product. Analyze whether the product variety and structure of the enterprise are suitable for the change of market demand, and decide how to effectively allocate the limited resources of the enterprise to the reasonable product structure, so as to guarantee the income of the enterprise.

他们正在开发分销渠道和线下商店。目前市场上针对移动产品功能的类似产品很多，最大的风险是摇钱树可能变成狗，因此，我们需要为未来开发高差异化、高客户满意度的服务产品。运用swot分析法对企业在竞争市场中的优势、劣势、机会和威胁进行了分析，对企业进行了深入、全面的分析，并对其竞争优势进行了定位。

同时，先进、高性价比的产品在全球化布局中发挥着至关重要的作用。我们决定在促销计划中同时使用推拉策略。面对区域市场，我们可以推广不同的产品以满足消费者的需求，在品牌推广方面，我们可以与当地知名媒体合作。

They are developing distribution channels and offline stores. There are many similar products for mobile product functions in the current market, and the biggest risk is that cash cow may turn into dog，Therefore, we need to develop high differentiation、high customer satisfaction service products for future. We use swot analysis to analyze the enterprise's advantages, disadvantages, opportunities and threats in competitive market, and conduct in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the enterprise as well as positioning its competitive advantages.

At the same time, the advanced and cost-effective products play a vital role in the layout of globalization. We decide to use both Push and Pull strategy in delivery our promotion plan. Facing the regional market, we can promote different products to meet the needs of consumers，In the part of brand promotion, we can cooperate with well-known local media.

我们将设立关键绩效指标来评估市场推广计划的结果。我们对新产品有信心。随着新产品的推出，华为将得到市场的进一步认可，甚至将稳定华为在高端市场的地位，使我们在市场上更加全球化。

We will set up KPI to evaluate the results of the marketing promotional plan. We have confidence in the new product. With the new product, HUAWEI will be further recognized by the market and it will even stable HUAWEI’s position in the premium market and make ourselves more globalization in the market.

2. External Analysis on HUAWEI P-series mobile phones华为p系列手机外部分析

21世纪是信息时代，人们的生活离不开信息的传播。手机行业增长最快。由于中国人口众多，市场潜力巨大，未来中国手机市场的需求依然巨大。

华为是中国人引以为豪的民族企业，营业额不断上升。华为P系列手机是华为手机中最漂亮、最精致的手机。同时，华为也面临着各种市场问题和定位问题。
21st century is the information era, and people's life has been inseparable from the dissemination of information. The mobile phone industry is growing fastest. Because of China’s large population and potential market, in the future mobile phone market in China, the demands is still huge.

HUAWEI is a Chinese national enterprise that Chinese people are proud of it and its turnover keeps raising. HUAWEI P-series is the most beautiful and exquisite mobile phone in HUAWEI mobile phones. At the same time, HUAWEI faces a variety of market problems and positioning problems. 

2.1 HUAWEI Mobile Phones Marketing Mode

2.2 The Market Environment of HUAWEI Mobile Phones: PEST

2.3 Structure and Type of Competition

HUAWEI P-series mobile phone belongs to monopolistic competition because that,

• Smart phone market has many manufacturers and HUAWEI has many competitors like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo and OPPO;

• Entry into smart phone market has few barriers but there are plenty of competition;

• Smart phone production and sale in the market are all different. Like HUAWEI has many series smart phones and P-series has many models. Meanwhile, all these series and models are easy to be substituted.

2.4 Type of Competition

HUAWEI mobile phones belong to Substitution Competition because the smart phones have similar features and functions. They are very easy to be substituted.

2.5  Competitive table

From the table, we can see the high brand value, variety to different customers and high quality is very important for mobile phone companies. Apple has high brand value and unique quality in global. HUAWEI has high brand awareness and sales volume in china but not in the other country. So HUAWEI mobile phones need to expand their brand awareness in global. At the same time, HUAWEI need to improve the quality and continue to develop variety.

3. Internal Analysis on HUAWEI Pseries mobile phones

3.1 Generic strategy of the company

Figure 1: Differentiation strategies for HUAWEI P-series mobile phones

HUAWEI P-series mobile phone is one of HUAWEI's flagship models. Its market competition strategy is a differentiated competition strategy. The main market segment is 20-30 years old consumers who have a certain spending power, pursue fashion, and like using photograph to record the details of life. The characteristics of this series are that the processor and chip may not be the most advanced, but the appearance design is the most fashionable of HUAWEI mobile phones, the manufacturing process of the mobile phones is the most exquisite, and the camera performance is the strongest.

There are two reasons for why the HUAWEI P-series adopts a differentiation strategy. First of all, with the widespread use of social media, the consumer group that uses mobile phones as a camera to record the details of life is getting bigger and bigger, and whether the camera function of mobile phones is powerful is one of the most important reference factors for purchasing mobile phones. Secondly, there are some gaps in processors and chips between HUAWEI and Apple, Samsung and other mobile phone manufacturers (Dambrāns, 2016), highlighting the camera function and design can help HUAWEI to promote its strengths and avoid weaknesses. 

3.2 BCG matrix analysis of HUAWEI P-series mobile phones

Figure 2: BCG matrix of HUAWEI P-series mobile phones

In 2012, HUAWEI launched the first P-series mobile phone (Luo et al., 2012). After that, the amount of sales has increased year by year. In 2017, the P10 series mobile phones have been sold more than 10 million units worldwide. Data for the past 3 years showed that its sales growth rate was greater than 10%, andP-series mobile phones account for more than 20% of HUAWEI's mobile phone market share (Lin et al., 2018), indicating that P-series mobile phones belong to star products.

HUAWEI P-series mobile phone has the characteristics of high growth rate and high market share as a star product. It can bring a lot of income to enterprises, and it has high development potential. It needs to increase investment to support its rapid development. However, it is worth noting that due to the rapid growth of the market and profits, it is easy to attract more competitors.#p#分页标题#e#

3.3 SWOT analysis of HUAWEI P-series mobile phones

Judging from the strengths, the strengths of HUAWEI P-series mobile phone is that its camera function is the most powerful in the market, and its design is also one of the most fashionable at present. The process of making mobile phone is also very delicate.

In terms of the weaknesses, the downside is that its price is high, and it lacks some business functions, and its chips and processors are not the most advanced.

Considering the opportunity, with the widespread use of mobile networks and social media, mobile phones are now more than just a communication tool, but also a camera, necessities and accessories for recording life.

About the threat, more and more companies are starting to launch phones similar to the P-series, such as OPPO, VIVO, and they sell similar mobile phones at a lower price (Lin et al., 2018).

According to the results of the SWOT analysis, HUAWEI' P can adopt an SO strategy, which is to continue to expand its advantages in photography and design by taking advantage of opportunities of continuously increased future target customers, so as to determine its technological leading position in the same type of mobile phones. 

4 .Marketing Strategies

4.1 Product Life Cycle – P-series

HUAWEI’s P-series already passed the development and Introduction period. From no one cares to deep customer love. “In 2017, the P10 series mobile phones have been sold more than 10 million units worldwide. From the product cycle point of view, it belongs to the growth Stage.” (Lin et al., 2018) Author points out HUAWEI’s P-series belong to the growth stage; The p-series has gained profit and has a certain share in the market. The p-series products break the single color of other mobile phones, and customers can choose the color they like. Their prices are also lower than other mobile phone company’s phone; their store are also available in everywhere such as shopping mall, street, and also their phone always with good after-sales service and discounts on holidays.

4.2 Positioning Level

HUAWEI P-series is committed to bringing the digital world to everyone, every family, every organization, building a smart world of all things connected; therefore, P-series positioning level belongs to social needs in the Maslow pyramid.

4.3 Elements of the Product

Compared with other models of mobile phones, HUAWEI P-series is more targeted. They are focus on young people. The p-series phones are light and have a choice of colors. Men can choose black and brown, while women can choose pink and pearl. Compared with IPhone XS, the price is cheaper and more colorful, which will not cause economic burden for young people.

4.4 Experience Map

During the experience，I enjoyed a perfect shopping. The staff is very professional and can help you answer questions and concerns. However, there are still a few suggestions here; first, there are too many costumers in the store, it is recommended to wait for the number before entering the store and ask for their appeal, so as to ensure the shopping experience of each costumers; second, hire more employees; third, the phone case in the store is too ugly, young costumers have to buy other phone case online, more mobile phone accessories should be designed by HUAWEI.

4.5 Price strategy

HUAWEI is a leading mobile handset manufacturer company with many products in their portfolio. HUAWEI mobile business divisions have several product lines in its marketing mix that caters to different target customers as it is using different strategies for different market segment. A HUAWEI honor series product is targeting people who really care about the quality, while HUAWEI P-series such as P20 Pro is targeting the customers aged between 20 and 40 who prefer the advanced technology, excellent appearance and are willing to pursue fashion trends. Even economic growth worldwide is not stable, but the demand of mobile phones in the world is always increasing since mobile phones industries are one of the most profitable industries everywhere. 

HUAWEI always focuses on providing best quality products to its customers as pricing are nearly same by all competitors. It also charges high prices for its new and innovative P-series products that are not in the competitor’s product line at the initial phase.Since a sufficient number of customers have a high demand on P-series products, the competitors may adjust the product line to cover this specific segment soon. As we can see the type of competition for the P-series products is related to Substitution competition.

HUAWEI's original idea of creating the P-series was to upgrade the basic needs to the aesthetic needs of the products.In January 2012, HUAWEI officially released HUAWEI P1, a product positioned as “the first high-end mobile phone", which for the first time made the global media realize that the original homegrown smartphone can also be so exquisite and can be the thinnest in the world. From there HUAWEI has officially entered the global market with their global outlook.  To ensure the P-series keep growth, HUAWEI release the new P-series model every year by adding unique features to influence the product life cycle, such as “Fastest” feature for P2 in 2013, “High quality photo” feature for P9 in 2016, and “Incredible triple cameras” for P20 in 2018. It keeps the prices at the fixed level by fast product iteration since they know the price drop when the product enters the maturity stage. HUAWEI is using the price skimming strategy for the P-series products to set an initial high price and then slowly lowers the price to make the product available to the wider market and acquire maximum profit for each P-series model consistently.

In March 2018, HUAWEI released the new models - HUAWEI P20 and HUAWEI P20 Pro which had the world's first Leica triple camera. All innovations and R&D have enabled HUAWEI to establish itself as a top global mobile phone brand. HUAWEI has set the high expectations for these models which enable anyone can capture professional quality images. When we look at the price of HUAWEI P20 Pro 6GB+128GB, the market price is 4988RMB. It falls as “High Value” product when we comparing with other brands in the market.

HUAWEI uses “Target costing” model for P-series products since P-series is targeting the high end customers which are willing to pay more for the innovation, such as triple Leica cameras, super charging technology.  As descripted in Marketing Management Millennium Edition (Philip Kotler, 2000) “The objective is to bring the final cost projections into the target cost range. If they cannot succeed, they may decide against developing the product because it could not sell for the target price and make the target profit. When they can succeed, profits are likely to follow.” After several years of development, HUAWEI has established a complete mobile phone supply chain system. It has become an important customer for mobile phone manufacturers and parts suppliers, so HUAWEI has an advantage in bargaining power for most components. This enables HUAWEI to determine the expected price, and then deduct the desired profit margin from this price, and leaves the target cost they must achieve so they can have the advantage of pricing the products and fully consider the total customer’s cost. This will help HUAWEI keep improving on customer’s experience.

4.6 Promotion

It is shown from the analysis that HUAWEI P-series has great market space globally. We would use different promotion ways to make it globalization developed. Push strategies create consumer demand; the marketer pushes the message out to the target authence and is in control of the message - what it is, how it is seen, and when and where it is consumed. Pull strategies are created by consumer demand, enticing the target authence to voluntarily request your product or service and pull it through the delivery channel. (Rimlinger Chris, 2011).

4.6.1 Push strategy

As we all know that P-series more focus on high end design, it is more popular in Europe.  We would find out one product, for example P10 as featured product for Southeast Asian market to future improve sales revenue. Since Southeast Asian market is more for middle end products in the past, i.e. Nova series. It could be the new potential market for P10. Firstly, to open more experiencing stores in convenient shopping malls especially in city center or business buildings, hiring local sales person, setting up targets, monitor the operation process and keep employees learning and developing. Secondly, organize more public shows in high end clubs once per week to reach business customers directly with showing the features, applications, etc. Providing pricing package, we could cooperate with local telecom operator providing customized P10 products. 

4.6.2 Pull strategy

Regards Southeast Asian market, design targeted TV advertisements to broadcast on TV and advertising promotion platform or display in front of a film to show at the cinema. Making billboards along the highway to the airports also in the city center. 

US market is still a new market for HUAWEI. It is too hard to open the market for political reasons. In this case, pull strategy is feasible. We can work with US public relationship companies for brand promotions, big events sponsor, like US Open, NBA, NFL and also entertainment industry, even as sponsor for Hollywood film to gain advertising moment in the film and along with film promotion activities. 

4.7  Place strategy & SCM#p#分页标题#e#

SCM of HUAWEI P-series mobile phones

In fact, the SCM of mobile phone industry is so complicated that it needs not only labor-intensive industries to produce, but also high-tech industries to support. So the major mobile phone brands need to put in great efforts to ensure their supply stability. The whole supply system is simply divided into three parts: manufacturing, sales and end-users. All parts need to be stable in this process.

4.7.1 HUAWEI P-series mobile phones are completed in 5 steps:

• Manufacture（ODM、OEM）

• R&D

• Quality（SQE、 QE、OQA）

• Components(materials, display, CPU, Software

• CS

The whole process of mobile phone production is a very complex production process, not only need to have a lot of investment in research and development, but also need to invest a lot of energy in the production and quality.

4.7.2 The sales link of P-series mobile phones can be completed through a variety of sales models:

HUAWEI phones are sold online and offline：

-  Off line: First of all, cooperate with distributors to sell in physical stores.：Gome, Suning and other electrical stores. The second is to use the way of starting a direct shop to promote, so that we can better enhance the customer experience

-  On line: T mall , JD , the official website of the HUAWEI

In the end, Through the offline experience online purchase of this new sales method, to a large extent, improve the consumer experience, but also to increase sales.

4.7.3 HUAWEI P-series mobile phones Value created and Distribution strategy

The mobile phone industry is an industry that involves a lot of related industries, so the production of a mobile phone needs a lot of suppliers, supplier management is particularly important. The results of a global purchasing and supply chain study at Michigan State University show that among all the ways to reduce purchasing costs, supplier involvement in product development has the greatest potential, with a cost reduction of 42%, a cost reduction of 40% by using supplier's technology and process, and an immediate production by supplier. At 20% cost, suppliers can reduce costs by 14% by improving quality, while only 11% by improving procurement processes and price negotiations.（lishuang.zhao 2018） So a good supply chain management can create a great cost advantage, improve product quality, improve research and development efficiency.

HUAWEI's early sales strategy did incorporate both online and offline models, but the offline model lacked support from physical stores, so it did not have a large market share of competitors OPPO and VIVO. The key strategy behind should increase the investment of direct outlets.

5. Evaluation and Control

Strategic management decisions will have a significant and lasting impact on the enterprise, and wrong strategic decisions will bring serious losses to the enterprise, while timely evaluation can make the manager prevent potential problems from occurring in the future.

First, we use Balanced Scorecard to score the various dimensions of enterprise operation and assess the enterprise's operation performance, including long-term strategic goals, short-term financial goals, external shareholders, customer evaluation, internal management efficiency, performance assessment, growth process of management and learning, etc.

Secondly, a strategic evaluation framework should be established to check the implementation of enterprise strategies and constantly correct internal and external threats. Therefore, enterprises should constantly monitor the changes of environmental factors.

Finally, measure enterprise performance, compare the expected results with the actual results, study the deviation of the actual process to the plan, evaluate individual performance and the progress achieved in the process of achieving the established goals.

 

References

Dambrāns, K. (2016). How China’s HUAWEI is taking on Samsung and Apple. Retrieved September 30, 2018, from The Conversation Web site: http://theconversation.com/how-chinas-HUAWEI-is-taking-on-samsung-and-apple-52838.

Luo, Y., Cacchione, M., Junkunc, M. and Lu, S. C. (2012). Entrepreneurial pioneer of international venturing: the case of HUAWEI. Organizational Dynamics, 40(1), 67-74.

Lin, X., Liu, B., Han, J. and Chen, X. (2018). Industrial upgrading based on global innovation chains: A case study of HUAWEI technologies Co., Ltd. Shenzhen. International Journal of Innovation Studies, 3(9), 128.

Rimlinger, Chris. Push and Pull Marketing Strategies: Using Them to Your Advantage Franchising World; Washington Vol. 43, Iss. 12,  (Dec 2011): 15-16.

Lishuang.zhao(2018) https://wenku.baidu.com/view/d6c1800b16fc700aba68fc00.html

Philip Kotler (2000). Marketing Management Millenium Edition, Tenth Edition.