Daily New Egypt interviewed Huawei Egypt CEO Yang Tao about the company’s future plans in Egypt, and how it can support the economy in its current transformation process.
Tell us more about your participation in Cairo ICT 2015?
Since Cairo ICT 2015’s theme is “Go Smart”, it indicates the high expectations of governmental and industrial perspectives. Thereby came the decision to consider Egypt as a regional ICT hub, believing that the exhibition has significant role in the industry chain.
Huawei is expanding its participation this year, which will witness the sharing of ICT solutions to build broadband networks, excellent user experience, agile innovation, and showcasing its full range of LTE services, smart devices, and cloud data centre.
The company will also mainly focus on demonstrating its smart city solutions for sensing, analysing, and integrating key information of a city’s core operating systems.
Information and communications technologies (ICT) will play a key role in boosting the economy in Egypt. How can Huawei support in the transformation progress?
ICT is reshaping economies and the way we live. ICT will inspire lots of exciting innovation and trigger a new round of exponential growth across industries.
Boosting economies relies on better, more reliable, and safer connections. A better connected world will boost the digital transformation and bring positive social and economic impact to Egypt.
ICT is playing a key role, not only in supporting this economic boom, but also by shaping its future direction. The latest ICT trends are set to drive strong GDP growth. The Global Connectivity Index (GCI) research released by Huawei in 2015 is considered the national economy barometer that indicates the positive impact of ICT on GDP; a 20% increase in ICT investment will grow the GDP of a country by 1%.
Where do you see Egypt’s ICT industry in the upcoming period and what are the challenges and opportunities for this digital economy transformation period?
Huawei believes the Egyptian ICT industry has great potential, and we also believe challenges come with opportunities.
A good development plan cannot be realised without qualified professionals. Big Data and IoT depend on strong ICT skills and workforce. It is a necessity to invest in education and training to create a workforce with the ability to leverage the economic benefits of data analysis and IoT.
Governments have to play a role to drive consumer adoption of technology by enabling digital access to government services. E-commerce is closely correlated with broadband in the country and provides the means to convert digital assets into economic value.
What is Huawei’s future strategy in Egypt?
As a global ICT leader and a leading global ICT solutions provider, Huawei is dedicated to sustainable socio-economic development and strives to build a better world. Huawei is therefore committed to localising its operations and expanding investment in Egypt. With our expertise in the information and communications area, the company is devoted to enhancing customer experiences and creating maximum value for telecom carriers, enterprises, and consumers.
Huawei is flourishing within the smart devices sector; could you tell us more about success points, market share, and future plans?
Huawei Consumer Business Group provides a range of products including mobile phones, mobile broadband (MBB) devices, home devices, and cloud services. With more than 20 years of rich business expertise in the ICT sector, an extensive global network, vast global business operations and partners, Huawei Consumer BG is dedicated to bringing the latest technology to consumers, offering a world of possibilities, and creating extraordinary experiences.
Huawei ranked third globally in smartphone shipments, and sales continued to grow with 27.2m devices sold. The market share increased from 5.2% in 2014 to 7.7% by the end of Q3 of 2015. A total of 27.4m smart phones units were shipped by Huawei.
In the Egyptian market, Huawei’s market share of mobile devices amounted to 12.1% until the end of September 2015. We aim to double its growth rates during the next phase to increase its market share, relying on new devices presented by the company in the Egyptian market that fit a wide variety of users, both in terms of capabilities or price.
Tell us more about fourth generation technology; is Egypt ready for it?
High consumption and high demands for data services, such as mobile videos, music, and social networks, provides good chances for LTE deployment and expansion in Egypt.
As for Huawei, we are overwhelmingly concerned about the actual value of LTE for the customer. We expect, together with operators, to optimise the business model in network deployment and business operation, to lower TCO targeted by 30% and to strengthen profitability of per bit.
How much does Huawei collaborate with telecom operators, the government, and the enterprise sector?
Huawei has made strategic adjustments to better serve its customers and adapt to the revolutionary changes that are taking place in the information industry. Huawei extended the reach of its innovative offerings from the telecom carrier network field to the enterprise to remain focused on customer and market needs. We are providing innovative and value-added E2E ICT solutions for our customers to help them increase revenue and reduce costs. At the same time, we consider Egypt’s characteristics. We provide flexible business models and cooperation models and share global successful experiences to help customers quickly deploy business and get business success.
We are witnessing great efforts from the Egyptian government to improve the ICT sector. Huawei will continue collaboration to fulfil the goal to implement the national ICT strategy and plan. We will definitely contribute to major national projects and identify ways in which ICT technologies can benefit the Egyptian economy through the creation of readily accessible and reliable digital services.
Tell us more about your contribution in the training field, the transfer of the latest ICT technologies to Egyptians, and the “Seeds for the Future” programme you initiated?
A strategic focus for Huawei in bridging the digital divide is to stay committed to the transfer and sharing of ICT knowledge and skills and the nurturing of ICT talent. We strive to bridge the divide for people from all walks of life in terms of information accessibility, and to achieve the target of making information technology available to all.
