Honor is on course to hit its target of 40 million shipments by the year end, having sold half of the target in the first half of the year, Reuters said.

Citing comments from George Zhao, president of the Huawei sub-brand, the report said sales so far have reached $2.6 billion. The 40 million target would represent a doubling of its sales year-on-year.

Huawei has been working hard to build Honor in recent years, embracing a direct-to-consumer sales model and promoting via social media channels. It is targeting younger users.

And while this has seen a push into markets such as Europe and India, Reuters also reported that Zhao expects 15 per cent of sales to come from outside of China.

The figures came as Honor unveiled its latest smartphone, Honor 7, in its home market.

The LTE device, which has a 5.2-inch full HD (1920×1080 pixel) display, is available in several versions, starting at CNY1999 ($322) with 16GB of storage, rising to CNY2199 for 16GB of storage and dual-SIM, and to CNY2499 for 64GB of storage and dual SIM.

Honor 7 also has 20MP main and 8MP front cameras, microSD expansion slot and fingerprint sensor. It is powered by an octacore HiSilicon processor and 3GB of RAM.