Huawei, which started selling a wide range of smartphones from the recent CAN Info Tech 2014, an annual information and communication technology expo, opened its main showroom at New Road on Tuesday. Call Mobility recently signed an agreement with Huawei to distribute its products in Nepal.

“The way people look at Chinese handsets has been changing slowly, and we are launching various marketing strategies, brand campaigns and network channels for the expansion of the market,” said Roshan Neupane, marketing head of the company. “We have opened a store in Kathmandu and later we will expand to other places.”

The company offers four new smartphones, the Huawei Ascend Y 511, Ascend G 610, Ascend G 700 and Ascend P6, in the domestic market. Their prices range from Rs 13,475 to Rs 42,769. “Since we introduced these phones in the market last month, we have been getting a good response,” said Neupane. “Among them, the Ascend P 6 attracted lots of enquiries from customers as it is the slimmest smartphone and has many unique features.” The smartphone comes with a 6.18-mm slick metallic body and 4.7-in HD in-cell display and features 1.5 GHz Quad Core processor, 8 MP rear and 2 MP front facing cameras.  

Lenovo, another big Chinese player in the PC market which entered the smartphone scene two years ago, launched its smartphone business in Nepal last month. Horizon Enterprises is its distributor in the domestic market.

“Lenovo has been successful in the personal computer market, now it is going to be a global brand in the smartphone market. We hope that it will do well in Nepal also,” said Anil Bhattarai, regional sales manager of the company.

Bhattarai said that Lenovo smartphones stand out because of their superior battery. “The most common problem suffered by smartphone users is battery life, and these smartphones have a long-life battery,” he said. The company sells a wide range of smartphones like the Lenovo A 269i, A 369i, A 516, A 706, A 830, S 920, S 820, P 780 and K 900 with prices ranging from Rs 8,490 to Rs 56,900. Among them, the K 900 is a high-end smartphone which is powered by Intel 2 GHz processor and runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system. Its other features are 5.5-in HD display, 13 MP rear and 2 MP front cameras, among others. “Slim and ultra slim smartphones at affordable prices are the reason why we will be the market leader in the coming one to two years. We will also launch an aggressive campaign and establish a wide distribution network in the whole country,” he added.

Meanwhile, ZTE, a Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and system company, is also planning to enter the smartphone market in Nepal soon. “It has started distributing various smartphones as per the orders and bookings of customers, and we are planning to launch smartphones in the Nepali market with an aggressive strategy,” said Janak Karki, one of the account managers for the country.