Huawei’s mobile division in Kenya has an ambitious target of taking up at least a quarter of the smartphone market in the country. To do that, the company has amplified its presence in the country by setting up brand stores and entering into strategic partnerships with key players in order to directly interact with its customers. Its latest move is tapping the services of device distributor Tricom Technologies to provide support to its customers in a new service centre.
The service centre, which is located at Cambrian House on Nairobi’s Moi Avenue, is strategically placed. It will serve customers in the busy central business district (CBD) as well as targeting the customers that have for long been going to downtown Nairobi for all their device repair needs. It will become the second Huawei service centre in the city after the one at Jeevan Bharat building on Harambee Avenue which is managed by another partner, Malibu Telecom. Malibu also manages another Huawei service centre at Ambalal House in Mombasa.
With time and further partnerships, Huawei aims to have service centres across the entire country to serve its increasing clientele, according to Huawei Kenya Marketing Manager Millicent Ngatia.
The service centres handle repairs for devices both under warranty and without warranty as well as other customer care operations. For customers located in areas where Huawei does not currently have service centres, they can drop off their devices at any Tricom outlet for onward delivery to the new service centre. According to Tricom Technologies Managing Director Johnson Waweru, the company’s expansive presence in the country guarantees enough of such collection points even as it expands its operations to towns like Eldoret and Kisumu.
Huawei currently has partnerships with all the mobile network operators in the country i.e. Airtel Kenya, Orange Kenya and Safaricom. Only last month, the company entered into a partnership with mobile device retailer FoneXpress which will see the vendor stock Huawei devices in its over 100 stores across the country including Tuscom, Naivakom and PhoneLink.
