Huawei has been having a stellar time of late in the smartphone business. The company has been selling mobile phones by the boatload, thanks in no small part to its Honor sub-brand, which has reportedly shifted 20 million devices during the first half of the current calendar year, earning the company revenues to the tune of $2.63 billion. Buoyed by the increase in sales of its Honor-branded devices, Huawei shipped 48.2 million smartphones in the first half of 2015, which is an increase of 39 percent over the corresponding period last year. The company was also able to increase its overall revenues by 69 percent YoY to 9.09 billion in the first six months of 2015, according to the financial results announced by the company recently.
Huawei is fixing to launch the next generation of its premium Honor smartphone, the Honor 7, in European markets later in August, according to reports. The company no doubt expects the upcoming smartphone to carry on setting the sales charts on fire, in line with the success of previous generation phablets like the Honor 6 Plus and mid-rangers like the Honor 4x. Huawei is reportedly hoping to double the net sales of its Honor-branded handsets to 40 million by the end of this year. That should not be too much of a problem, seeing as some of the largest sales events of the year in most markets around the world – and especially in China – come at the end of the year. Events which include the Chinese New Year, Singles Day and Christmas, see most companies significantly outdo their first half numbers in the second, unless something goes drastically wrong.
With the company’s mobile division in such rude health, many observers in China believe that the company will eventually be able to establish supremacy over Xiaomi in its home market of China, which is increasingly turning out to be the single most important mobile battleground for manufacturers from around the world. With the tussle between the two large companies heating up, it will be interesting to see which way the scales tip later in the year, when Xiaomi is slated to launch it next generation flagship with the much-awaited Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 SoC.