This week Huawei held its Xperience 2022 event, which showcased a bevy of new smart devices that the company has earmarked for launch in South Africa. The offerings run a fairly wide gamut, with a foldable phone, premium notebooks, a Bluetooth speaker and a range of wearables all on display.

Added to this where a pair of WiFi Mesh routers, which when placed alongside some of the other devices that Huawei has debuted in recent months, such as a smart printer and gaming monitors, sees the breadth of smart devices currently available from Huawei in SA expand significantly.

Where the company was known mainly for its smartphones a few years ago, and the P series in particular, as Huawei has had to pivot to other areas with ongoing issues involving the US government, we are starting to see its ecosystem come to fruition.

To gain a bit more insight into the newly launched smart devices, as well as its plans for South Africa’s retail and channel spaces, we spoke with VP for the Huawei Consumer Business Group in SA, Akhram Mohamed.

Here is what he was able to share with us.

Hypertext: Huawei revealed nearly a dozen devices today for SA, which is definitely above its usual average. Why was that choice made?

Akhram Mohamed: So today was different product segments and what would normally happen is that we would launch a family of smartphones, but today was only one.

Then we would have a laptop event at a different time, then wearables by itself. So when we looked at it, we thought that we had all these devices coming in at the same time, why not launch them all at once?

Hypertext: The Mate Xs 2 and MateBook X Pro are the hero devices, but are there any others that you are excited for local consumers to experience?

AM: I’m especially excited about the Watch Fit 2. For me it is the perfect smart wearable as it is light and comfortable. The Watch Fit also did well in South Africa when it launched, so I’m expecting good things Fit 2 as well.

I also think the MateBook D 16 is a great offering. It might not be as extravagant as the MateBook X Pro, but it is still a truly powerful laptop.

I’m also generally, although we did not mention them today, our Nova series of products, which has also been performing quite well here in South Africa.

That said, the hero devices you mention are what people will be going crazy for.

Hypertext: At the risk of being provocative, with two foldables now in SA is Huawei ready to throw the gauntlet down against Samsung?

AM: I would not phrase it in that way, but we will certainly look to be a tough contender when it comes to foldables in South Africa.

Hypertext: During his opening address, Justin Sun noted that Huawei will have more Experience Stores in SA. How many are already up and running, and what are some of the goals on that front?

AM: So the number that was spoken about during the address is for this year. Within this year it is going to ramp up and I think we are currently sitting on six Experience Stores, with the latest being in Sandton City.

We are looking to get the 10th by the end of this year and hopefully in early 2023, to get beyond that mark.

The difference with these new Experience Stores compared to our previous retail spaces, is that those were focused only on product and you did not have access to the entire experience of Huawei offerings, but now that is going to be expanded.

It is going to be expanded to include the smart home and smart office scenarios, similar to what we had on display following the presentation. We are also focusing on educating customers on the Huawei brand and services.

Hypertext: Speaking of smart home and smart office devices from Huawei, will we see more from the company moving forward for SA?

AM: I think smart home, smart office, smart everything, smart lifestyle in general.

We also spoke today about moving more into the enterprise space and what we mean by that, is that we are finding our consumer products overlapping into the business space. So we are focusing heavily on that and saying that it does not matter, you choose whether you’re an enterprise user or not, but we ensure to give you the best of everything.

So we are starting to see that and the Seamless AI ecosystem is a big part of that, with complementary devices that talk to one another is something we want to expand.

The products we have brought in, whether it is PC, tablets and even Mesh WiFi, which have all done well locally, will be expanded further down the line.

That is certainly something we are looking at, particularly in the smart home space, but I think smart office will happen first.