Early Beginnings:
Cherry Mobile is a locally-renowned company, famous for its ringtone, its wide array of smartphones, and recently, affordable IoT devices. Their new phones are also famous for being bang for buck and without any form of bloatware.
The company is not an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) but rather, they are an ODM (Original Design Manufacturer). Meaning, they modify existing handsets designed by other companies (such as Blu, Elephone or Ulefone) and add their own twists and specifications, as so to cater to their demographics. This is why you may see similar yet differently branded phones sold by Cherry Mobile (such as the Aqua S9 Max and Blu G90 Pro)
How did Cherry become the famous Filipino handset icon that values your lifestyle we know and love (or hate, depending on the user) today?
Founding:
Cherry Mobile was founded by Meynard Ngu in 2009 under Cosmic Technologies. Barely a year after the company launched, it was awarded IT Company of the Year in the 3rd Cyberpress Awards, bringing the company a step closer to leading Chinese tech firms at the time such as Lenovo.
Cherry Mobile was launched as a response to the overly-expensive handsets provided by Nokia and Blackberry at the time which were two of the most dominating brands.
“At that time, handsets were so expensive – ranging around P25,000, so we offered a quality product that appealed greatly to consumers who were looking for a more affordable device,” explains Maynard.
To encourage Filipinos, his brand proudly screamed “Proud Pinoy”, thus also encouraging consumers to promote local brands.
Although proud of his intentions, Meynard was not content and had bigger visions for the company. He wanted Cherry Mobile to provide products that would satisfy everyone and to complement everyone’s lifestyle. He wanted the company that has “everything for everyone”.
Rise of Cherry Mobile:
Originally, the company only had four phones to showcase. Despite the miniscule number of phones, these phones have massive reception. This meant that Cherry is now rising among the likes of International brands and secured its place as one of the many rising stars in the local business scene.
In 2012, Cherry announced the Cherry Mobile Flare, a dual-core 4in. smartphone, which became the company’s best-selling smartphone, and that year’s best-selling phone. The “Flare” name has since been applied to many of their future models.
The success of the Flare came in many points: It targeted an appropriate market, particularly, the budget-conscious ones who wanted feature-rich phones. It had just enough specs, and the right amount of features.
The company won yet another prestigious award. In 2013, it won Yugatech’s “Top Selling Smartphone Brand” beating numerous smartphone giants.
The astonishing success of the company also led to its growth from 50 employees to over 750 during the course of the year.
Cherry Mobile continued to lead the local smartphone business with its aggressive pricing and innovative features and, at the same time, also improving the quality of their products.
Steady as She Goes
In 2015, Meynard ventured into the telecoms business. He launched his own prepaid SIM, dubbed “Cherry Prepaid”, in partnership with Globe Telecom. The SIM Card is geared towards users who use their data often. So the SIM Cards have promos that have long data promo duration and large amounts of data.
To ensure the company’s credibility and quality, Cherry partnered with multiple international companies, such as Mediatek, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Facebook and Qualcomm
In 2016, the company launched the M1, the first smartphone in the Philippines to be powered using then Mediatek’s high-end processor, the Helio X20. The phone became the first locally-made phone with a deca-core processor. That’s 10 cores!
The M1 also boasts the Sony IMX230 to boot, the same sensor used in the camera of the Sony Xperia XA Ultra and the LeEco Le S3
“I think for any local brand, we should always aim to take the lead in pushing innovation.” Meynard said in BusinessMirror.
We have more to say about Cherry but it all can’t fit in one page. Click the button below to see how Cherry expanded to other parts of the world as well as their present-day activities!