Western European Consumer Perception of a Chinese Brand. An Examination of Huawei

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Trade and Distribution, grade: 1,0, King`s College London (Lau China Institute), language: English, abstract: In the last decade China’s economic role has changed considerably. The rise of China is concomitant with the emergence of many giant Chinese corporations. Those corporations are dominating rankings of largest companies worldwide. To reinforce their economic position, Chinese companies aspire to build their own global brands, but few have been successful so far. This research paper seeks to provide an in-depth analysis of Huawei’s current brand positioning in Western Europe. To what extent has Huawei been able to create a popular brand? How are Huawei’s smartphones perceived in comparison to other global smartphone brands? How effective is Huawei’s branding strategy? Is the Huawei brand as a Chinese brand encumbered with country-of-origin effects? To answer these questions, the author applied a mixed methods approach comprising of an online questionnaire and interviews, which have been conducted from June to July 2014. The objective of the questionnaire is to depict the big picture of the Huawei brand among Western European consumers, while the interviews aim to explore relevant issues mentioned in the questionnaire. The main findings show that Huawei’s brand is not an established brand at the present moment, but rather is in a transitional stage. Huawei is perceived to have smartphones with an appealing design and sophisticated technological components, but overall lacks strong and succinct associations in comparison to other smartphone brand leaders. In addition, the COO impact and isolated branding approaches result in an ineffective brand strategy, which highlights Huawei’s need for a precise and consistent brand management.