Huawei unveils Honor 7 smartphone, expects to double sales in 2015
Huawei believes it will sell 40 million units of its flagship Honor line of smartphones, helping to cement its position among the top players in the field.
Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei has high hopes for its Honor line of smartphones.
Huawei, the world's fourth-largest smartphone vendor, on Tuesday unveiled the Honor 7, its latest flagship smartphone, at an event in Beijing. The company also unveiled two accessories: a smart wearable device called the Honor Band Zero and a Bluetooth headset called the Honor Whistle.
Huawei is in the midst of jockeying for position as a major player in the global smartphone market, and is attempting to fend off upstart Chinese vendor Xiaomi, which has leaped into the scene with more affordable products and a successful online sales tactic. But Huawei feels good about its Honor line; the company said it expects to sell 40 million units this year, twice as many as a year ago.
Sales from the Honor brand generated $2.6 billion in revenue from over 70 countries in the first half of 2015, the company said in a release on Tuesday.
The Shenzen, China-based company has been trying to expand its brand recognition in the American smartphone market, largely by taking on a direct sales tactic through its own online store. It's a strategy that rival Xiaomi has employed in parts of Asia and India with great success.
Xiaomi, meanwhile, is scheduled to hold its own launch event in Brazil later Tuesday as it looks to expand into the South American region.
Huawei's Honor 7 boasts an all-metal body, a 5.2-inch display, an octa-core processor, 3 gigabytes of RAM, a 20-megapixel camera with a Sony sensor, a 8-megapixel front-facing camera, a rear sapphire camera lens and a 3,100 mAh battery. It will run Google's Android 5.0 operating system, also known as Lollipop. Like Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones, it also comes with a fingerprint sensor.
The Honor 7 won't likely make it to the US soon, where carriers have been reluctant to carry Huawei's higher-end devices. Even its recently unveiled P8 Lite sells for $250 without a contract.
The Honor 7 starts at 1999 Chinese Yuan, or about $323.