Huawei's Honor line sees massive surge in sales over last year

Huawei's low-cost smartphone strategy appears to be paying off. According to a new report, the Chinese manufacturer has increased sales of its Honor lineup from 1 million to 20 million units in one year, which no doubt contributed to its rise to the fourth largest smartphone seller in the world.

According to Reuters, Huawei has managed this success through adopting an online-only approach coined by its smaller rival, Xiaomi:

Given the early signs, Huawei executives hope to emulate the phenomenal growth of Xiaomi, which broke into the global top five in just a few years - a success not likely to go unnoticed by the growing ranks of low-cost Chinese smartphone makers.

This online approach is something that Huawei sees as a boon to reduce costs in the competitive low-cost smartphone market:

Honor brand president Jeff Liu said industry transition to an online sales strategy was inevitable given the competitive pricing, afforded by reduced distribution expenses that would otherwise make up 30 percent of handset costs.

Source: Reuters

Dan Thorp-Lancaster