Honor 9 Lite has been a success in India, with the company shipping over a million units over the span of five months since the device went on sale. "This is our first phone to sold over 1 million units in India ", P Sanjeev, Vice President Sales, Huawei India - Consumer Business Group, told indianexpress.com on the sidelines of the launch of the Honor 7A and Honor 7C in the country. Honor 9 Lite was launched as a Flipkart exclusive in January this year, and was priced at Rs 10,999 for the base model. "With the Honor 9 Lite, we are really impressed. During the Flipkart Shopping Days which happened last week, the Honor 9 Lite was the number one selling smartphone," he said. Also read: Honor 9 Lite review: At Rs 10,999, this is the best budget phone right now Sanjeev believes the success of the Honor 9 Lite has given the brand a strong foothold in India, where the company competes with the likes of Xiaomi, Samsung, and Oppo. Honor 7X has also been received well by the Indian consumers, although he did not share the exact sale figures. Over the past few months, Huawei's sub-brand Honor has been aggressively expanding in the Indian market. Sanjeev says the company has adopted the "India first" strategy and is continuously working on the same. That might have possibly helped the company to break into the top five smartphone players in India for the first time in the past quarter. According to the latest data from Counterpoint Research, Honor held a market share of 3.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2018. Also read: Honor 7A, Honor 7C first impressions and hands-on: Redefining the budget segment With the launch of the Honor 7A and Honor 7C, the Huawei sub-brand wants to capture the sizable chunk of the Indian smartphone market: the sub-Rs 10,000 segment. "We have been missing out on 50 per cent of the handset market in India, which is still under Rs 10,000. Now is the right time to launch the Honor 7A and Honor 7C in India. [These] phones will push us and move forward to the top three smartphone players in the country", he explained.
