Almost a sensation that went unnoticed, but in vain: in June-July 2018, the Russian smartphone maker for the first time entered the top five sales leaders. And no, this is not one of those pompous projects that were launched with slogans of import substitution. This is a brand created according to the rules of the global digital technology market – simply, without noise, “in working order”.
The brand is called – BQ. Sounds familiar? Well, yes, often comes across. But everyone thinks that this is another “strong Chinese manufacturer” – and it is quite Russian. The share of the smartphone market is already 7% (yes, this is one of the top five – the market is very competitive, there is no mono- and even oligopoly on it).
From 3 to 15 thousand rubles – the most successful Russian “mobile” brand operates in this price range. It entered the market in 2013, a very successful year for such projects. A year later, the well-known conflicts with the exchange rate began, which dramatically increased the competitiveness of Russian brands. As a result, BQ smartphones can be found in most retail networks – in electronics supermarkets, in stores, and in the offices of telecom operators.
“In the first months, when BQ smartphones appeared on the shelves, the buyers had a slight prejudice towards them – like another Chinese, still unknown,” says Alexey Svetov, a consultant for the largest chain of electronics stores. – But after six months they began to take them very willingly. Because almost no one else could offer such parameters at such a price.
In addition to smartphones, there are tablets, push-button phones, e-book readers, and media players in the line of the brand. In general, the complete gentleman’s set of a manufacturer of mobile equipment, which has no special “slope”. As for smartphones: the built-in memory is up to 64 GB, the processor cores are from 2 to 8, the operating system is Android in version 5 to 8.1, the screen diagonal is from “children” 4 to brutal 6.2 inches. The flagship android phone BQ-6200L Aurora has everything a top-end smartphone needs, including a fingerprint scanner, a frameless display, and an advanced portrait camera.
The Russian mentality is expressed in a characteristic detail: BQ does not have a single smartphone without the ability to work with 2 SIM cards. First of all, this is about mobility – a person living and working in several cities or regions, of course, needs alternative SIM cards. Secondly, about enterprise: businessmen often need to have a separate number for his personal needs and a separate one for the business conversation. Plus the possibility to save – it is often more advantageous to have one SIM card for the data plan and another one for voice communication.
And, unlike most manufacturers of Android phones, BQ offers customers an operating system without unnecessary “dodgers” – which are almost impossible to remove and which in many cases are very annoying with their lack of alternatives.
In addition to electronic components, the quality and the appearance of the model determines its localization. And here BQ has practically no competitors: unlike most competitors, domestic smartphones are fully localized. Up to the correction of “common android” translation errors, that are always annoying to users.
A separate moment is the service network: BQ was the first of the “popular” brands to really invest in it. There are authorized service centers in every region where devices of this brand are sold. BQ CEO Vladimir Puzanov adds that image marketing projects add popularity to the brand. The company is particularly proud to have become sponsors of the Spartak-Moscow football club and actively cooperate with the group “Hands Up!”. But if the quality of the phones of this brand were not good – functional, reliable and inexpensive in relation to their functions – image marketing projects would have no effect whatsoever.
