Taipei - "Psst. Get into laptops. That's where the money is." Seriously, if you heard someone whisper that to you in a
bar, you'd call them a cab and tell them to lay off the bottle.
Huawei Technologies, though, isn't drunk. A bit buzzed
over its success last year in smartphones, sure, but the Chinese tech
giant is as clear-headed as ever.
Its decision to enter the laptop market may be foolish, or
it may be brilliant. Quite possibly it's both. With the release of the Matebook
X a 13-inch, slim, fanless laptop Huawei has a clear target market in mind, and
it happens to be one of the demographics that are showing signs of life.
Consumers still aren't ready to return to PC purchases, but
commercial customers are. Unfortunately for Huawei, its reputation as a Chinese
government front whether deserved or not makes landing corporate accounts quite
unlikely, especially in Western markets like the US.
Read also: Huawei bets on Leica for success
But there's a middle ground: high-end or professional users
who are buying a PC for themselves, including small business owners. Industry
data sometimes lump these buyers in with home consumers because
usually they purchase online or from retailers like Best Buy.
If Huawei can capture this specific group in a broad array
of developed market geographies, it may just be able to establish another
beachhead from which to build brand recognition and help it become a global
household name. The more Huawei logos you see at the local Starbucks or pitch
meetings, the higher chance it will start to be accepted as a credible and
trusted brand.
Whether the company can make money from laptops isn't
irrelevant, but is a less pressing question than it would be for a public
company that's answerable to shareholders every quarter.
Its likely Huawei can spin a dime or two, though, because
its huge engineering and product development teams give the company the scale
to make a bet on a new business line. And if you're still not convinced, go
back a few years to when no one took Huawei seriously in Smartphones.
BLOOMBERG