Yesterday, Huawei president Zhao Ming took to the stage to reveal the new Huawei Honor 5A, a budget version of the Honor 5X. During the unveiling in Beijing, however, Zhao Ming dropped a rather impressive detail regarding the new phone’s older sibling. Worldwide sales of the Honor 5X have exceeded the 8 million mark and will keep on growing. Zhao Ming predicts that sales will, in fact, even make it past the 10 million mark. Easily one of Huawei’s most popular handsets of all time, the Honor 5X sports decent specs, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 and 3GB of RAM underneath is 5.5 inch screen, and a fairly good price at around $199 unlocked depending on where you look. Considering all of these factors, it’s little wonder that the affordable looker of a phone has sold like hotcakes.
The Honor 5X has been around a relatively short time, only seeing initial release in China back in November of last year, and making its way out in early 2016, coming to the United States at the end of January. Thus, having seen only five months of worldwide sales and just over seven months of sales in its homeland, the Honor 5X has managed to set a new bar for budget handsets. Its decent display resolution of 1920 x 1080, paired with a panel size of 5.5 inches, results in a more than reasonable PPI of 401, making for a very pretty screen. The striking metal body also contributes to the perception that this may not be a budget handset after all. The addition of a fingerprint reader seals the deal, making the Honor 5X among the best in its price range for new phones, to be surpassed only by those willing to look to used 2015 and 2014 flagships.
The handset is still available and still blazing a sales trail worldwide, though the new Honor 5A may cannibalize some of its sales, mainly among users who want a decent smartphone that’s a bit cheaper and would have had to stretch their budget to opt for the 5X. While the Honor 5X isn’t quite “budget” enough to take a bite out of the likes of some other phones, those looking for a brand-new, no-compromise phone on the cheap really can’t go wrong with Huawei’s global darling.