Huawei promises first own-brand smartphone in UK by mid-September

Blaze handset to begin assault on Western markets, but analysts warn lack of consumer awareness will hinder success

Huawei has announced that its first own-brand smartphone will hit the UK during September as the company seeks to establish itself as a major player in Western markets.

Mark Mitchenson, Huawei's UK managing director, told Bloomberg that the Blaze smartphone will launch next month and that the Chinese company is aiming for around five per cent market share within 12 months.

Huawei will look to take share from "anyone involved in Android", but Mitchenson admitted that it could be a tough battle as "we are trying to establish the brand almost from scratch".

V3 contacted Huawei for more information but had received no reply at the time of publication.

IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo told V3 that Huawei is unlikely to reach this five per cent target owing to a lack of brand awareness compared with vendors such as Samsung, RIM and HTC.

"It's not a surprise that Huawei is launching this device, but it will have to make it cheap and ensure that it has a good user experience to entice customers, as at the moment no-one knows the brand and there's no reason to choose it," he said.

"Huawei has shown with its [unbranded] Ideos smartphone that it can deliver on this, but to reach five per cent market share within a year will be tough.

"The company will have to use below-the-line campaigns to get the device in people's hands to sell it over other mid-tier phones."

Jeronimo added that, while new companies have entered the mobile market in recent years, most had done so with prior consumer awareness, which Huawei lacks.

"LG was able to enter the market as it had a strong brand in other consumer electronics areas, but Huawei's base is in the network space which means nothing to most people," he said.

The announcement coincides with Huawei's earnings report for the first half of 2011, which saw revenue growth of 11 per cent to ¥98bn (£781m) and profits of ¥12.4bn (£98m).

The manufacturer attributed this growth to increased sales in its enterprise products and, interestingly, its consumer devices.

Huawei has already said that it will launch a 7in tablet running Android called the MediaPad as it looks to become a major player in new mobile markets, which the firm underlined to V3 at its headquarters in Shenzhen in May.