Huawei aims to sell 2 million 'Honor' handsets this year

The company today unveiled two new devices under the Honor range- 4X and 6 Plus

Chinese handset maker Huawei today said it aims to sell two million units of its 'Honor' range of handsets in India this year as it aims to target the "digital natives" in the country with the online-only brand.

The company today unveiled two new devices under the Honor range -- 4X (priced at Rs 10,499) and 6 Plus (Rs 26,499), which will be retailed through eCommerce major Flipkart.

It now has four devices under the Honor range.

"The dual brand strategy has been working well for us globally and in India. Last year, we sold 3,00,000 units of Honor devices and this year, we are looking at 7X growth in that number, at about 2 million. We are focused on bringing in devices that will appeal to Indian users," Honor President George Zhao told PTI.

He added that the company will bring one or two more devices under the range to India.

"We will bring in affordable and premium devices with the best possible technology for the digital natives," he said.

Increasingly, a number of companies are focusing on the tech-savvy youngsters, using e-Commerce as the distribution channel.

While Motorola was one of the first handset vendors to sell its devices solely through online retail, China's Xiaomi and Micromax subsidiary Yu have also followed the same route.

Globally, Honor sold about 20 million units in 2014, raking in USD 2.4 billion in revenues. Overall, Huawei saw its handsets business revenues at about USD 12 billion last year.

According to research firm IDC, Huawei was the world's fourth largest smartphone vendor with 6.25 per cent share.

It follows Korean electronics giant Samsung (20.01 per cent), Apple (19.85 per cent) and Lenovo (6.59 per cent) in the tally in the October-December 2014 quarter.

Honor 6 Plus features a 5.5-inch display, 3GB RAM, Quad-core Cortex-A15 and quad-core Cortex-A7 processors, 32 GB internal memory, 4G support and 3,600 mAh battery. It also comes with a dual 8MP rear camera.

The Honor 4X is powered by a 1.2 GHz quadcore CPU and features a 5.5-inch display, Android KitKat OS, 13MP rear and 5MP front cameras, and 3,000 mAh battery.

Besides, the company has set up a Huawei Honor Fund, under which the company will contribute USD 0.1 from the sale of each device (4X and 6 Plus). This will be awarded to start ups and individuals working on ICT technology.