Last year, mobile and tablet manufacturer Alcatel went through a re-branding exercise here in Australia. The company was somewhat unknown, but thanks to a strong effort, Alcatel has now climbed to attain the number 3 position in the Australian handset market.
The re-branding of Alcatel was a fairly major one, culminating in dropping the double-barreled Alcatel OneTouch branding at Mobile World Congress this year. The rebrand has been successful not only in Australia, but globally, with Alcatel now in the 5th position in the handset market.
Alcatel has successfully run their market awareness campaign, getting their name out there to a broader audience thanks to major sponsorships of Australian sporting teams such the NRL’s South Sydney Rabbitohs as well as sponsoring recent entry to the AFL, the Greater Western Sydney Giants.
Alcatel has also re-imagined their product line-up, delivering unique and in-demand devices, including the Telstra Essentials Tablet, the Quattro 4G through Boost and of course our personal favourite from last year, the Alactel IDOL 3. The Idol 3, and indeed almost all the record 21 devices that Alcatel launched and had in-market prior to Christmas 2015 were top notch, filling a market need for quality devices.
And 2016 is looking to be an even bigger year, with Alcatel announcing a refreshed POP 4 series, as well as a follow-up to the flagship Idol series, which includes two different sized and specced units which will be released in Australia later this year.
Sam Skontos, Vice President and Managing Director, ALCATEL Pacific and Singapore spoke about the changes in 2015, saying
2015 was a game-changing year for Alcatel both locally and abroad. The market’s Q4 results reflect that we are clearly but aggressively growing whilst always ensuring that we deliver technology that makes sense to mass market consumers, from design through to affordability.
Our ongoing commitment to, and focus on the pre-paid segment of the market remains as strong as ever, and we head into 2016 with an impressive portfolio of products and complementary brand activity across music, lifestyle and sport. Such activity will continue to bring the brand to life and give Australian consumers meaningful opportunities to engage with our brand.
The Alcatel team is looking ahead globally with their new product line coming on board, with plans to reach the number 4 position in the US market, and aiming for the #2 spot in Latin America. We’re looking forward to seeing what Alcatel can do in 2016, with a strong set of devices planned it’s shaping up to be a great year.
Somethings wrong with this article. I can’t see this mob ahead of LG, google or even Huawei for that matter.
Must have been a paid article, as I’m sure Daniel, being the EIC would have raised his eyebrows to a claim like this. Guessing the press release envelope was stuffed with cash 🙂
We’ve been through this previously we mark articles as paid if we have received a payment to write them or put them on the site. We have not with this article as it was not a paid article.
So if not paid, then just poor fact checking? Got any numbers to back up this 3rd place claim?
I’m not the only one who raised their eyebrows at this ‘claim’
Data is from an independent marketing firm called IDC I believe you may have heard of them if you know anything about analytics. The data is submitted by each company (Samsung, Apple, Alcatel etc.) individually.
Well IDC wasn’t listed in your article, so how am I just a poor pleb reading your article meant to know.
Still would like to see this IDC data on how they have sliced and diced it. You can twist and spin anything!
Do you TRULY believe Daniel that Alcatel has sold MORE mobiles than Oppo, HTC, Microsoft, LG, Huawei, ZTE or MOTO?
According to an IDC release on 27/01/2016 the worldwide top 5 smartphone vendors of 2015 (and of the 4th Quarter of 2015) were Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Lenovo and Xiaomi – no mention of Alcatel.
Did Ausdroid actually see anything from anyone other than Alcatel to substantiate this story?
Yes. This is related to the Australian market. Not the international figures.
The point is that if the claim in the article that Alcatel has become a top 5 global smartphone manufacturer is patently false then how credible should we find the article’s other assertion that they are number 3 in the Australian market? You aren’t providing any figures or any detail on this claim. If you have had access to IDC figures specific to Australia why wouldn’t you have provided more information? As it stands the article looks like nothing more than a regurgitated press release, reproduced without any checking, verification or, even, curiosity. Australian market share is very interesting for… Read more »
I agree I can’t see how this is possible. As far as I can tell they do make devices that are of reasonable value for money in the low end of the market I still do not see how they could be 3rd. I also do not agree that that they have increased their brand awareness at all as most of the devices that would make up their sales would be sold under whatever the carrier wanted to call it. Thinking about it even more there is no way they could be 3rd as Apple and Samsung would obviously hold… Read more »
Did you guys copy the wrong press release from the wrong country?
Number 3!? I’ve never seen a Alcatel phone in the wild, nor ever remember seeing one for sale!!
Moto, Samsung, LG, Huawei, ZTE, HTC and lets not forget Apple all sell phones here! Are you saying most of these sell LESS units that Alcatel!
Boost and Optus prepaid phones are mainly from Alcatel all around the $20-$50 range.
Im still finding it hard to believe as theres a lot of competition in that space and a lot of people seem to go for midrange or higher in Australia.
Don’t buy it at all. Apple and Samsung would be no 1/2, you think that the 2 Alcatel phones out of 11 prepaid phones that Optus sells and the 1 Alcatel phone that boost sells, sells more than Oppo, HTC, Microsoft, LG, Huawei, ZTE or MOTO?
Goes to ebay, searches for Alcatel….. 160 items found, I’ll ignore that a lot of these are flip phones and the telstra jumbo phone for oldies….
Yeah right, 3rd place.
What surprises me the most is that I didn’t even realise Alcatel was popular enough here to even break into the top 3. Whilst i dont find their phones appealing, I’m glad they are doing well for themselves.
Edit: spelling
I appreciate that running site like this will involve passing on information provided in corporate press releases but SURELY there should be an element of checking and verification before you publish? Of course, it is vaguely conceivable that Alcatel has suddenly become the 5th largest handset vendor in the world but where do these figures come from? And, who dropped out of the top 5 in order to let Alcatel in? What period of sales is reflected here… last quarter 2015, or January sales 2016, or perhaps a wet weekend in February? Gartner’s figures released last month for worldwide sales… Read more »
Number 3 – impressive effort… 10% sounds about right to be number 3, but what is the source for the stats?
Apple, Samsung and then Alcatel… wow.
Impressive considering i feel that i haven’t seen any of its presence around – peoples handsets either Apple or Samsung.
But given the sponsorship, it must be working for them to jump up the ladder.