Huawei is apparently planning to invest $10 million in growing its handset business in India during 2015, with half set to be used to support its Honor sub-brand – which the company is also rolling out in Europe.

According to The Economic Times, plans include the creation of a dedicated e-commerce team in Bangalore, as well as promotion and marketing costs.

India’s smartphone market is already in the midst of tough competition, with Xiaomi and OnePlus recently launching devices, and a number of local players such as Micromax, Karbonn and Spice competing alongside international vendors including Samsung and Motorola.

The paper said that Huawei joined a number of its rivals in September by partnering with online retailer Flipkart, in order to sell Honor-branded devices. It intends to introduce more 4G smartphones in this line next year.

Huawei’s target for the Indian market is a 2 per cent market share by the end of December 2015 – with sales of more than 2 million smartphones across its brands (with products such as Ascend Mate 7 using the Huawei name at the high-end).

In order to support this, it would also “seriously consider” manufacturing devices in the country, with an infrastructure facility in Chennai likely to be expanded to support handsets.