 |
| Huawei’s senior executives announcing a Huawei - Informatica tie-up yesterday |
Huawei has signed an agreement with Informatica Qatar (I-Qatar) under which the latter will be the exclusive distributor of devices and mobile phones manufactured by the Chinese ICT solutions provider.
Huawei and Informatica officials said they have nominated some smartphone models to Qtel and Vodafone and looked forward to working closely with Qatar’s two telecom service
providers.
Manar Alazma, senior director, Huawei, said the company had set a sales target of 3mn handsets in the Middle East by the year-end. Last year, Huawei sold more than 1mn handsets in the region.
“Qatar is a significant market for us. We want to make a real presence here with the support of our partner Informatica,” Alazma said.
Huawei has authorised I-Qatar to be the sole distributor and after-sales provider of all company devices that will be introduced in the local market.
The company has launched Huawei IDEOS, touted as the ‘world’s most affordable’ smartphone loaded with the Google web search engine.
Wisam Costandi, general manager, I-Qatar, said: “Qatar enters a new era of smartphone mobility with the introduction of Huawei’s IDEOS series. Users now have excellent options that fit their particular mobile needs and style. For our part, the partnership with Huawei affirms our commitment to dealing with only the best technology solutions providers in the global markets.”
The basic IDEOS unit and the more advanced U8800 IDEOS X5 both run on the Android 2.2 operating system for mobile devices, also known as ‘Froyo’, which allows the phones to “operate faster, easily tether to Wi-Fi hotspots, and fully support” Adobe Flash animation.
Ramy Numair, commercial director, I-Qatar, said: “We would market Huawei mobile phones through more than 100 points of sale across Qatar. This will go up to 200 within six months.”