Dixons Carphone revealed that its 4G MVNO, iD, launched just five weeks ago, will be the exclusive mobile network distributor of Huawei’s 2015 flagship smartphone P8 in the UK.

“No one had heard of iD five weeks ago but Huawei gave us their confidence, took the plunge and backed us,” said iD general manager Adam Dunlop.

He said that pre-orders for the device were “really strong,” adding that “we sold the stock in two to three days.”

The phone is available on a 12 month contract, a strategy the new company is excited to bring back.

“The response has been great and this is just the start of what we can do together,” Dunlop commented.

He explained that there are two commonalities between Huawei and iD that make their partnership “a sensible and reasonable” one.

They are both “challenger brands in the UK market looking to innovate based on meeting customer needs” and they are both targeting “young independents”.

These are the “techie, appy people, demanding of their relationship with their service provider and device maker,who know exactly what they want and don’t want to be overcharged,” he explained.

Huawei sales director Rhys Saunders said the Chinese vendor was “very pleased to launch the phone with iD mobile. There’s a lot of collaboration we want to do with them going forward.”

The feature Huawhuawei lightei was most keen to show off about the P8 is that users can do light painting with its 13 megapixel camera. This involves using a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph to create stunning visuals.

At the launch event in London last night Huawei invited light artist Michael Bosanko to show the audience his work and help them create their own light paintings.

iD’s Dunlop explained that the MVNO’s journey started 18 months ago when it held focus groups and thousands of customer interviews to “distill what’s on their mind.”

“We have the luxury to talk to more mobile customers than any other retailer in the high street”, he said, as well as having records of several million customer interactions a year using their in-store assistance sales tool.

They managed to get “incredible insight on what customers really want,” he claimed. This included three main things, flexibility, more control and personalisation, which gave birth to the iD brand.

“As the name suggests, iD is the ultimate statement of personalisation,” said Dunlop.

He said the new network offers the best value capped plans in the market with 4G as standard. Its Take Away call plans lets customers use their bundle in 20 countries.

“The online solution, the app, the billing provider, the network partner is all new. What isn’t new is the retail footprint which is a huge asset,” he said.