Chinese smartphone and telecom equipment giant, Huawei Technologies, on Monday released its financial report for H1, 2016, revealing that its revenues for the first six months of this year grew a whopping 40% over its revenues for the corresponding period last year. While Huawei’s telecom equipment business as well as its consumer devices unit were both believed to have contributed handsomely to its growth, the company earlier today finally shed some light on exactly how well its consumer business is doing globally. According to the details released by Huawei on Tuesday, the company’s consumer electronics business earned revenues of 77.4 billion yuan ($11.6 billion) during the period, growing 41% over the same period last year.
The company also says that it shipped 60.5 million handsets globally during the first six months of this year, making it the third-largest smartphone vendor in the world. The figure represents a 25% rise over the company’s sales during the first half of last year, and much of it, according to Huawei, is because of the demand for its premium smartphones from consumers around the world. The company, it’s worth noting, unveiled its flagship P9 and P9 Plus smartphones earlier this year at a high-profile event in London, England. According to Mr. Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business, traditional markets for premium smartphones, like Europe, contributed heavily to the company’s topline during the period. He also revealed that in recent months, the company has seen high growth in a number of emerging market economies, like those in North Africa, Central Asia and Latin America.
Huawei recently replaced Xiaomi to become the largest smartphone vendor in China, thanks in part to the popularity of its ‘Honor’ sub-brand that is known in many parts of the world for its value-for-money offerings, with devices like the Honor 5X competing against mid-range smartphones like the Moto G and the Redmi Note 3 in countries like India. The company is also in responsible for manufacturing and marketing the Nexus 6X, which happens to be Google’s latest flagship smartphone. Now that Huawei has well and truly established itself as a force to be reckoned with in the global smartphone business, it remains to be seen if the company will be able to maintain its momentum going forward.