Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies has earmarked a bigger budget to build brand awareness of its smartphones this year with the aim of boosting its Thai market share from 2% last year to 15% in 2017.
Huawei has spent US$600 million on marketing to promote its smartphone brand in Thailand in the past five years.
"We plan to spend more this year to capitalise on growing demand for wireless broadband access and mobility thanks to the availability of full commercial fourth-generation (4G) service," said Thomas Liu, president for consumer business in Southeast Asia.
This year's marketing budget will take into account all marketing costs, customer service centre expansion, distribution and brand building.
Despite the global smartphone market witnessing a slight decline in growth this year, Mr Liu said Huawei will continue to focus on providing a greater variety of mobile handset models to attract users.
"Thailand is among the markets with most potential for Huawei. The migration of 3G to 4G networks is significantly faster than expected and this ensures strong business opportunity," he said.
Mr Liu said Huawei's recent launch of its technology and innovation centre in Bangkok -- its first in Southeast Asia -- reflected a long-term commitment to Thailand.
Even though its market share of 2% in the Thai smartphone market last year was still low, some indicator signs suggest the company is moving in the right direction.
For example, Huawei's brand recognition in Thailand rapidly climbed to 60% last year from 32% in 2014.
"Our target is to see Huawei's brand recognition among Thais increase to 80% by the end of this year," Mr Liu said, adding that greater recognition would have an impact on customers' decisions.
Huawei began launching its smartphones in Thailand in 2014 after supplying low-tier devices to local mobile operators for 10 years.
It plans to launch the Huawei P9 and P9 Plus smartphones in Thailand. They feature a dual camera jointly developed with Leica.
Huawei Thailand recently appointed Tossaporn Nisthanon as deputy country director of its customer business group. He was previously head of IT and mobile business of Samsung in charge of strategic planning and development for Southeast Asia.
Huawei operates three core business groups: networking for operators, consumer business and enterprise business.
In the first quarter, Huawei grabbed an 8.5% market share of smartphone sales in the global market.