State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Newsweek ran a story about how Huawei is good with engineering and keeping its prices low but has challenges with branding. See excerpts below. Is that the case with Huawei in Pakistan as well?

[Huawei] has built its success the old-fashioned Chinese way—by selling to other businesses, rather than directly to consumers around the world, and by competing on price rather than on innovation. Its founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, is the anti–Steve Jobs—he has never given an interview to the foreign press. Huawei Internet routers and cell-phone switches (with names like Quidway-S9300 Series Terabit Routing Switch and GSM/UMTS Home Location Register 9820) are used by many of the world’s biggest telecom carriers, including the likes of Vodafone, providing phone service to more than 1 billion people worldwide.

The article talks about how Chinese companies, many of them technical, handle branding. Huawei has to face scrutiny due to its ties with the Chinese government. Its a double edge sword as they have benefited from that relationship as well.

Chinese approach brands—as a fact or skill set to acquire, not an art to master. Wen’s speeches on the issue, and new Beijing loan programs to address it, reflect this thinking. So do the efforts of local governments in cities like Dongguan, a major export hub that still focuses mainly on assembling products for Western brands. Officials here admit that local firms have little or no brand savvy, and they are pouring in money to fill the gaps. Using part of a $20 billion stimulus package from Beijing, they are subsidizing companies that set up R&D centers, train staff in marketing, and register trademarks.

The state connections of all big Chinese companies still raise red flags among customers. Huawei dropped a joint $2.2 billion bid for American telecom equipment maker 3Com last year after U.S. lawmakers called the deal a threat to national security. It withdrew an earlier bid for Marconi, a landmark British electronics and information-technology firm, after Conservative Party leaders called for an investigation of whether China’s government could use Huawei ties to Marconi to spy on the British defense industry.

Huawei executives say accusations that China could use their equipment to steal sensitive data are ludicrous. But, as every good marketer knows, perceptions matter. If Huawei wants only to cultivate a few hundred elite industry buyers, perhaps it can explain itself to them directly. But if China hopes to build dominant names in the global consumer market, it needs a very different role model. One that has some interest in becoming a famous name.