Huawei Opens Online Store To US Consumers As Part Of Plan To Sidestep Carriers

Huawei, a Chinese tech company, is actually the top-ranked telecommunications company – in terms of revenue – as well as the fourth largest smartphone seller in the market today. Despite its achievements, the Western world was still not so familiar with the company, which was why they decided to open an online smartphone seller for the U.S. market, according to CNET.

On Wednesday, Huawei launched the P8 Lite, which is a very attractive mid-tier smartphone. Apart from this new device, the company also released a new fitness tracker – the TalkBand B2 – that was reportedly made in cooperation with Jawbone. It would appear that Huawei was in a bit of a rush to ramp up its online retail presence.

Huawei did not stop there. According to Zhiqiang Xu, the president of Huawei Device USA, the company has actually been planning to launch a new premium smartphone later this year. What makes this announcement even more interesting is that Xu has stated that this upcoming flagship smartphone from the Chinese telecom company will be at par with the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Apple iPhone 6.

“The market is going to change,” Xu said. “E-commerce is the perfect solution in my mind.” It would seem that Xu will be attempting to make huge changes with how today’s tech consumers buy their devices.

As it would turn out, Huawei’s decision to focus on its own online sales channel was actually part of a bigger plan from a variety of Chinese tech vendors. Apparently, the plan was to purposely sidestep U.S. carriers and build their own branding by directly appealing to potential buyers. They may be able to do this by launching relatively affordable smartphones with high quality components.

Xiaomi, another Chinese tech company, has already gone ahead of Huawei. Xiaomi has already edged its way into the U.S. market as it has already officially opened shop on Western part of the Internet. For now, however, the company is only selling smartphone accessories, and not smartphones.

“We do not have a set plan,” Xiaomi’s global vice president Huge Barra, said during the Recode Code Conference that was held last week, according to another CNET report. “We have not picked a date to bring a smartphone to the U.S. We are, sort of, dipping our toes.”

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