Some time ago, the main global mobile phone manufacturers began to create alternative brands with which to reach a different audience. Creating a sub-brand has served on many occasions to reduce the official prices of a brand, without “staining” the main one. Furthermore, the communication of a mobile telephony sub-brand can walk in parallel with its parent company, but with its own identity stamp. Let’s take a look at the main sub-brands that we find in the market and who they belong to.
Xiaomi, OPPO, ZTE, or Huawei, are some of the brands that have taken the step, creating alternative brands. In almost all cases, totally different teams are created, so that, even if they are born to the same father, fierce rivalries can be created between them. It happens that on certain occasions, the sub-brand penetrates so deep that many users do not even know its origin, or are surprised to find out.
Xiaomi
Xiaomi has three sub-brands. In this case, the company has followed the usual strategy. With the Xiaomi brand, the firm keeps its strategy intact, even raising prices like never before. However, the Redmi sub-brand helps them to launch terminals with a better price, maintaining good technical performance . These terminals even compete with the original Xiaomi, and generate conflicts between the user who does not know whether to buy one or the other. Likewise, the firm has the Poco brand, which has fewer terminals on the market and boasts the “flagship killer” label or at least, it was like that in its beginnings.
Little M2 Pro
Finally, Xiaomi has the Black Shark sub-brand , which is focused on the gaming world . They are devices designed for a young audience whose main use of phones is games. For this reason, its controls are even adapted to the game on mobile.
OPPO
Although it can be said that OPPO is a newcomer in Europe, the company has deployed all its machinery for the assault on the old continent. OPPO, like Realme, Vivo, OnePlus and IQOO are subsidiary brands of the Chinese giant BBK Electronics. This allows each brand to operate differently in terms of launches, prices or strategy. All these brands are officially present in our market, with the exception of IQOO, which is one of Black Shark’s rivals, in the gaming mobile market.
Realme 7
Huawei
Huawei was one of the first manufacturers to jump on this trend. The Honor sub-brand was conceived in late 2011 and established in 2013 . Since then, it has allowed Huawei to move away from the low prices in the high-end, with this option. The latest news suggests that the sale of Honor could be imminent, thus ending a seven-year journey full of interesting releases.
Honor 30S
Lenovo
Lenovo also has its own sub-brand, called ZUK and created in 2015. However, the odyssey of this sub-brand ended in 2017, as Lenovo has preferred to focus on the launches of Motorola, the brand of which it owns and with the one that continues to launch a large number of devices per year.
ZTE
Although ZTE operates with less force than other years in our market, the company has the Nubia sub-brand , which was established in 2012, becoming independent in 2015 and focusing mainly on the Chinese market.
Nubia Red Magic 5G
And giants like Samsung?
There are manufacturers like Samsung, who have not joined this strategy. On the contrary, they have created new families of terminals, but without separating from the main brand. In this way, in 2019 the Galaxy M or Galaxy A families were born, but always linked to the parent brand. Who knows if the future will bring us any surprises in this regard.