Local or Imported Huawei Devices

[ThaGombami]

Importing a Huawei device from China, Dubai, India or Malaysia can be a seemingly cheaper option but is it the best option available? I once posted about a mate 8 device stuck on Android 6 OS and have always tried to understand why I do not receive software updates until yesterday when I sat down with a team member from Huawei who explained the following. Importing a device from outside South Africa means you are eating away a share of Huawei South Africa sales revenue. Software updates are not send from Huawei to devices but rather they are sent to service providers who in turn send out out updates to their registered devices. Huawei South Africa can not provide support for your imported devices simply because they have a tailored OS for the South African market and hence they can not bear the financial cost of supporting devices that are imported that eat away their market share sales wise. Question remains will you get value for money when you import a device from other regions or does cheap become expensive and in effective in the future.

 

[Yirhu]

Honestly I've never thought of it that way, granted the device I'm planning to buy is not a Huawei but imported. I think one wouldn't buy an imported flagship smartphone because the total cost was a measly said thousand rands or two cheaper than a local one because the total cost of flagships is a lot of money and if it were to break that would be a big problem given how grey imports are unsupported by local manufacturers. So normally buying anything costing less than say R4000 seems reasonable to me.

 

[Sinbad]

Huawei SA won't support grey import devices. Note that you can get unbranded /native devices in SA, which are supported as long as they come through an official channel/partner

 

[sajunky]

All depends on the local service quality. If service is good, it makes sense only importing models which are not locally available. A good network contract on special is also saving a money, it is an alternative.

When you chose importing, you lose such features like VoLTE and VoWiFi. Those are carrier dependent and it is unlikely that local network provider is going support your firmware version.

 

[marioat1]

Importing a Huawei device from China, Dubai, India or Malaysia can be a seemingly cheaper option but is it the best option available? I once posted about a mate 8 device stuck on Android 6 OS and have always tried to understand why I do not receive software updates until yesterday when I sat down with a team member from Huawei who explained the following. Importing a device from outside South Africa means you are eating away a share of Huawei South Africa sales revenue. Software updates are not send from Huawei to devices but rather they are sent to service providers who in turn send out out updates to their registered devices. Huawei South Africa can not provide support for your imported devices simply because they have a tailored OS for the South African market and hence they can not bear the financial cost of supporting devices that are imported that eat away their market share sales wise. Question remains will you get value for money when you import a device from other regions or does cheap become expensive and in effective in the future.

Buying from Dubai isn't an issue I've found.
I've always rooted and flashed international firmwares and Roms and security patches were current.
Your mate8 you weren't proactive IMHO.

 

[TechStar]

it does make sense come to think of it