Dubai: Honor, the e-brand of smartphone manufacturer Huawei, is confident of doubling its sales volume to 40 million units and make $5 million in revenues globally this year.
“We have already achieved more than 50 per cent of the revenues and the sales in the first half itself. Last year, we sold 20 million units and are one of the fastest growing e-brand globally,” Chris Sun, vice-president of online sales at Huawei Middle East, told Gulf News after unveiling its flagship handset — Honor 7 — in Dubai on Monday.
The 5.2-inch Full HD IPS device is powered by home-grown octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 935 chip set, which means four cores run at 2.2GHz and the other four at 1.5GHz. It sports 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The microSD card supports up to 128GB. It runs on Android 5.0 version.
It houses 20MP autofocus rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, sapphire glass protection, fast phase autofocusing system, as well as a dual-LED dual-tone flash. The 8MP fixed-focus front camera with f/2.4 aperture and wide-angle lens for selfies comes with single-LED flash. It also sports a fingerprint scanner at the back with added features.
The phone will be available in Gulf countries on October 18 through Souq.com and is priced at Dh1,399.
Sun said the company has a simple business model and that is to reduce its operating costs by becoming an e-brand.
He said the Honor 7 has got good response so far. In China, it sold 200,000 units in two minutes, 7,000 units in three days in Europe, 1,000 units in 10 minutes in Russia and 5,000 units in Malaysia in two hours. In India, it is launched on October 7 and hopes to grab a bigger share.
The company expects to sell 15,000 units from the Gulf in the first week. The brand is targeting the digitally savvy consumers with an affordable price.
“The online model cuts marketing spending and commissions to distributors. That savings are passed on to consumers and they benefit,” he said.
The company, even though established last year, is only four months old in the UAE and has launched two models — Honor 6 Plus and Honor 4X.
He said the sales, so far, has been beyond its expectations, but he did not reveal how many units sold.
Huawei, which gets 45 per cent of the revenues from Honor, is aiming to become the first Chinese company to sell more than 100 million phones this year
The brand is already present in 78 countries and plans to enter South America.
“We are targeting 10 per cent of the online market share this year. Last year, the online sales of the smartphones were four million units but there is no accurate forecast for this year,” he said.