Huawei brings online smartphone brand Honor to Europe

LONDON (Reuters) - Huawei Technologies Co Ltd brought its youth-focused mobile phone brand Honor to Europe on Thursday with the launch of the Honor 7, a handset that has chalked up sales of more than 1.5 million in China since June. Huawei, the world's number three smartphone maker according to Gartner, has invested heavily in the past couple of years to establish Honor as a standalone brand challenging Beijing-based Xiaomi Inc in appealing to digitally savvy consumers. George Zhao, president of Huawei's Honor brand, said the handsets would be mainly promoted and sold online in Europe, as they were in China. The company made its vMall e-commerce platform available across the continent on Thursday. Zhao said the Honor 7, which has high-end features like a solid metallic shell and fingerprint recognition, was achieving high customer satisfaction levels. "It is very successful," he said. "We have shipped more than 1.5 million since June 13, only in China." Huawei, which also sells smartphones to the mass market of consumers and business users, is aiming to become the first Chinese smartphone maker to sell more than 100 million phones this year. Xiaomi has a stated sales target of between 80 million and 100 million phones. The Honor 7 will be priced at 249.99 pounds in Britain. (Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Mark Heinrich)