The homegrown smartphone
The Entrepreneur Of The Year Philippines 2017 has concluded its search for the country's most inspiring entrepreneurs. Entrepreneur Of The Year Philippines is a program of the SGV Foundation, Inc. with the participation of copresenters Department of Trade and Industry, the Philippine Business for Social Progress, and the Philippine Stock Exchange. In the next few weeks, BusinessWorld will feature each finalist for the Entrepreneur Of The Year Philippines 2017.
AT A TIME when the mobile phone industry was dominated by international brands, Maynard Ngu, 38, wanted to prove that a local mobile brand could be just as competitive.
With this goal of developing mobile phones specifically for Filipino users, he launched Cherry Mobile in 2009. Since its establishment, Cherry Mobile has become the leading local mobile phone brand in the Philippines.
Mr. Ngu has always had a knack for business. After graduating from De La Salle University he ventured into marketing and selling international brands. Experiencing the challenges that came with trying to build up less-known foreign brands, he decided to develop his own line of Filipino-centric mobile handsets. “It was a passion. When I graduated from college mobile phones were just starting to grow big,” he recalls. Mr. Ngu acknowledges it was a big risk. “At the time we started, I don’t think anyone thought we would be number one in the Philippines,” he recounts.
“We just wanted a small pie of the market and challenge the big brands. It was difficult, because they’ve been here for more than 10 years.”
He set out to make Cherry Mobile an affordable phone for Filipinos, yet one that would be comparable to international brands.
“Everything was conceptualized in-house. We had to develop all the local content,” Mr. Ngu said. “Everything is done here except for the manufacturing. We are very particular, from the design all the way to when it’s manufactured.”
He said the software is customized for first- time smartphone users. “The heart and soul of the phone is more localized,” he said. “It’s not like an international phone where you need to set everything up. With our phones, you can turn it on and use it immediately.”
Cosmic Technologies based the design and software on local lifestyle needs, creating apps attuned to Filipino needs. It also applied local-centric thinking to hardware, like designing a charger that would be able to handle unstable electrical currents in the provinces without damage.
Cherry Mobile’s strengths are its availability in the market — whether in malls or street stalls — at competitive prices.
This approach deepens the firm’s insights into local needs and wants, enabling it to determine the next stage of product development.
Mr. Ngu recalled that, in 2012, his company was the first to introduce the Android Operating System, helping its models become the most popular in the market.
The company introduced innovations such as the first 3G Dual- Sim smartphone, the first Android tablet and the first LTE local brand smartphone.
One of the significant challenges that Mr. Ngu has had to address is after- sales service. “People think since we were a local brand, we wouldn’t have service centers or warranties,” he relates. “We made sure our service centers have a strong presence in every major city, as well as the secondary cities.”
All service centers are managed by Cherry Mobile. All software upgrades are done over the Internet, and so as long as users have connection, they can easily get updates.
Mr. Ngu’s vision is for every Filipino to own a smartphone. “The market in the Philippines is 50% smartphone and 50% basic phone,” he noted. “Probably everyone in Metro Manila is using a smartphone but people in the provinces may not even have basic phones.”
This untapped market is what drives Cherry Mobile forward to give people access to data.
Mr. Ngu realizes that people now consume data on their phones more than ever before.
He said Cherry Mobile has stayed on top by never being complacent and consistently monitoring market needs.
It now sees the Internet of things as the next phase, where devices will have the ability to share data among themselves through the network.
For now Cherry Mobile is investing in more applications. It now has its own movie streaming application to complement its handsets.
It is also looking at markets elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Cherry Mobile was named “IT Company of the Year” by the CyberPress Awards in 2010. It won as “Top Selling Mobile Phone Brand” from Yugatech in 2013.
Consistent with his philosophy in running Cherry Mobile, Mr. Ngu advises aspiring entrepreneurs to be ready for anything.
“Never underestimate and don’t be complacent about anything. You’re not always on top. Especially in a fast changing industry, you never know what’s going to happen,” he advised.
The official airline of the Entrepreneur of the Year Philippines 2017 is Philippine Airlines. Media sponsors are BusinessWorld and the ABS- CBN News Channel. Banquet Sponsors are Bench, Bounty Fresh Food, Inc.; CDO Foodsphere; Fiori Di Marghi; Hyundai Asia Resources, Inc.; Jollibee Foods Corp., LBC, SteelAsia and Universal Harvester, Inc.
Winners of the Entrepreneur Of The Year Philippines 2017 will be announced on Oct. 18 in an awards banquet at the Makati Shangri-La hotel. The Entrepreneur Of The Year Philippines will represent the country in the World Entrepreneur Of The Year 2018 in Monte Carlo, Monaco in June 2018. The program is produced globally by Ernst & Young.