Huawei takes a dig at Xiaomi in India with launch of new budget smartphone

( Update: Huawei Honor Holly is now available for INR6,999 (US$114) from the Indian e-commerce portal Flipkart.)

China’s Huawei has today introduced a new budget smartphone, the Honor Holly, for Indian consumers. While the price is still under wraps, the smartphone will go on sale from October 16 in India first.

The sub-INR7,000 (US$115) smartphone segment is rapidly turning into a fierce battleground. The Huawei Honor Holly looks to be a powerful yet affordable phone to compete with the new Android One family of devices along side the hot-selling Xiaomi Redmi 1s.

The Honor Holly features a 5-inch HD display, 1.3 Ghz quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB built-in storage, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, 2,000 mAh battery, and runs Huawei’s Emotion UI 2.3 built on Android 4.4.2 KitKat. That puts it right up against the Xiaomi Redmi 1s.

A new Huawei Honor X1 tablet was also announced today and is already up for preorder at INR19,999 (US$325) from ecommerce portal Flipkart.

Unveiled earlier this year as the MediaPad X1 outside India, the new Honor X1 tablet/phone is pegged to beat the Apple iPad mini while there is no sight of Xiaomi’s MiPad in the Indian market. The Honor X1 packs a 7-inch full HD display, 1.6 Ghz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB built-in storage, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera, Android 4.2 with Emotion UI 2.0 and a 5,000 mAh battery. The tablet also offers a 3G SIM with voice calling support.

Both the Huawei Holly and X1 will be available exclusively through Flipkart in India, which shows that Huawei is taking a leaf from Motorola and Xiaomi in selling some models only online in the country.