Gadgetory

good afternoon everyone its Darcy like cuvee reporting live from CES 2016 I'm here with one of my colleagues mr. Andrew Elliot he's the VP of strategic marketing for ZTE in the United States thank you very much for spending time with me today I drew to be here how are you today sir I'm doing fantastic how are you doing yeah I think I'm doing pretty good all things considered that's quite a setup thank you yeah you know we're really blessed the station yeah I know it's uh we're here in South Hall one just at the entrance of the Las Vegas Convention Center so we're really lucky to be here and you know just want to say big thanks for coming by so let's let's talk about 2015 sure how was 2015 for CTE 2015 was a fantastic year for us so you know we started off here last year 2015 we announced the grand xmax plus it has since become when I'm a runaway hit with with Cricket Wireless ice we couldn't keep enough of those units on hand for them but in addition to that we we launched many other products to the point where we're at today we have 67 active SKUs across the table carriers in the United State and we've also of course announced a few wonderful unlock devices this one in particular the axon the axon which you recall back in July so that was a pretty bold move for you guys you've never done anything like that before unlocked the high specs available on the market quad HD Snapdragon 810 349 you know also with the passport just talk about passport a little bit and tell the audience what what it is let me get to that and just well okay here we go I'll dovetail into okay sure but the first thing I want to mention is that as you know you've spoken to our CEO for ZTE USA we talked a lot about the idea of affordable premium yes and throughout the years we continue to do that right so whether it's the grand ax Max Plus last year are these two new devices which we could talk a little bit about later but essentially there's an entry level a mid tier and a high-end that we see as opportunities for us to play in and in each of those tiers we want to be able to provide the most affordable most premium experience and and I think it's easy to say that we've done that with the grand ax Max Plus this last year and that's really where the active axon device fits in it so when you look at that hi Ann teer beautifully spec device it's wonderful looking of course beautifully priced as well too so it puts us there now we have a full range of affordable affordable premium offerings that we're able to deliver to consumers and so here in the United States so that's how that all plays out and that's why we did that device to begin with and we've subsequently launched that all around the world when we announced this device here in the United States we announced this with the with the axon passport program so even though ZTE is the fourth largest handset manufacturer in the United States it's not a household name and so we knew that when we sold this device unlocked that consumers some would have familiarity with the ZTE brand even though it's been doubling every year over the past three years but some may not and in that instance we wanted to provide assurance to consumers when they purchased this device from ZTE that they knew that the company that was selling it was standing behind it and so what we did with the axon passport program is we extended the life of the warranty on most mobile phones today it's 12 months this went to 24 months we also enabled a consumer if there was an out of warranty repair that needed to be done we would fix that for the consumer in any instance where there were a need to ship the product back and forth we cover the cost of the shipping as well very generous it's very generous and it's again it gets to the - to really the essence of what we wanted to do not only with how it fulfilled the the dream of delivering a series of devices across a wide range but also from the standpoint of what we did with this device so we put the consumer at the heart of everything that we design build and deliver and from the moment that we had the idea of building that that's what this device was about not only from the specs to the hardware but also to the after sales and support which is what you get with the ax on the passport program nice this year at CES just yesterday we announced the the evolution of the axon passport program to make it even better so now we have an ability for a consumer to have unlimited repairs done unlimited warranty for how for the life of the warranty over two years over - if you track your screen more than you drop it anything send it back to ZTE of course we continue to do that they advance exchange like we've done in the past are there any other manufacturers on the market that are aware of any that do that no HTC has that program but it's a lot more limited than that it's I think ours is the best that's available out there from u.s. manufacturer today so in addition to that we also have this ability to provide replacement credits or upgrade credit doesn't that I would say doesn't that cost the company a lot of money you know it costs money of course it yes money and he's all do but at the end of the day once we have a consumer that's made the decision to purchase this device it's far more expensive to attract a new consumer to come in to replace somebody should they decide to leave if we were not servicing them properly so this is a wonderful way to bring somebody into the ZTV family and keep them there we want to we want to continue to Brandt build this consumer loyalty towards the ZTE brand and this is a perfect way that we think that we can do that not only delivering it from the hardware standpoint but on the support side of it as well know it's very important and I think you know there needs to be more awareness about it to be honest but it takes time to build awareness I don't like my colleagues back at the back of the well trained you know media professional who's been in telecom and mobile for a long time and most you guys might not know this but Andrew used to work at Nokia and he's got a lot of great stories you've been in the industry how long his room probably well I mean I you could say I've always been in the industry so as soon as I got out of school I started working at a small software development company up in Redmond Washington called Microsoft I was there for 10 years and then after that I I joined Nokia yeah and I was there for eight years and actually almost of the day have been with de lot for three years be cool so yeah I mean mobile is probably the least forgiving industry on the planet you know we've seen companies rise and fall my question to you is this what did ZTE do well in 2015 that needs to be repeated for further success and what do you think needs to be changed so that the company can continuous trajectory forwards I think there's two things that we've done well and need to continue to do extremely well in the future if I can use that as proper grammar but the one thing is is working with the carriers and so making sure that the products that we develop are properly fulfilling the needs and requirements that we work on with them and they've done a fantastic job based on our partnerships that we've had with them over the last several years as long as we can continue to meet the needs and demands that they have and their high there's a high bar to meet there if you want to have a device in this portfolio mm-hmm and if you fall they will take you out of the portfolio so I think it's a testament to the fact that the success of the company and our leadership here at ZTE that we've been successful in meeting those needs of the customers the carriers yeah and so we continue to do that and as I mentioned we have a nice portfolio of product that we that we have available for consumers across all carriers today to be able to provide we cannot miss a step in that area yeah so that's one thing that you'll always see and then you'll see other devices too that we announced here one with Cricut at one with t-mobile again demonstrate how a grand ecstacy $129 price point you know for a device to this statute it's in clear competition with Moto e and the blue life 1x but I think it's probably a more compelling option yeah and it's talked about the accent a little bit more I'm how did it sell overseas and in Europe a pack and in China it's done extremely well yeah so all told across so when we launched it here in the United States we launched axon Pro we came with the companion the axon in China they launched several versions of excel Macs and so we have the X on mini axon luxe and the ax max that's available in China and then Copely we have the axon elite okay so all told roughly 1 million shipment not bad yeah so first time out of the gate with a flagship device I think that's pretty impressive I did see particularly as you said this is an unforgiving industry and so if it didn't resonate somewhere I don't think we would have had the success that we've had here so and you'll continue to see you know sixteen keep an eye on us there's there's more to come as it relates to our actual odd story we didn't see a refresh of the the beloved zmax line busy Maxine kumin anytime soon well keep it simmers for te there's an opportunity to do something like this again and participate in this yeah I think we'll have more news about some other products that's like at Accenture yeah we'll be checking you guys out of the booth and you know we'd love to have you come by thank you very much a great environment to come by there now I don't know if you saw our booth last year we did it was quite entertaining we had some lovely activation with some NBA legends yeah and we'll have them again this year in addition to in addition to that I think this is the first time at CES which is that the NBA championship trophy won by the Golden State Warriors who we are the official smartphone core will be featured in our booth tomorrow oh really by tomorrow it'll be there all definitely come check violently it's gonna be very cool that's cool is there anything else you'd like to add before we finish things off your favorite Android site well I just you know I welcome the opportunity to be able to bring these devices here and share them with you today this I think is the the best budget Android device that consumers are going to be able to get in place probably the best one that we're announcing here at CES 2016 when does it go in cylinder so this is going to be I don't know if we talked about price or not but it's a hundred 129 dollars this is going on sale this month okay Cricket Wireless is available on their 4G and LTE nationwide network unsung hero of LTE in the States right absolutely yeah they do a fantastic job I think so too well congratulations on a successful 2015 thank you so much for coming by starts to that today from Android 40 reporting live from CES 2016