Just last week, we reported on Huawei’s push into the Indian flagship smartphone market with the upcoming launch of the folding Mate X. However, it is in the budget market where the company’s fortunes in India will be made or broken. To help take a grasp of the country, Huawei is considering basing a manufacturing plant in India.
By doing so, the world’s second largest smartphone manufacturer would escape the 20% tariff India imposes on telecommunications devices imported into the country. It would also allow Huawei to build its devices locally and save on shipping costs.
Despite its rapid growth in the smartphone market in recent years, Huawei has struggled to crack India. The success of other companies like Xiaomi, Samsung, and Oppo has left the Chinese company far away from the top of the market.
It is worth noting Huawei previously had Indian facilities as recently as last year. However, the company closed those locations due to low demand. It seems Huawei wants to now turn its attention to manufacturing enterprise and network hardware in India.
Android Pie for Honor 8X
In other Huawei news, the company is rolling out Android Pie to its Honor 8X smartphone in India. Honor had previously revealed the update would begin reaching the 8X on March 18, but the launch was delayed.
A week later, the rollout has started, with Huawei’s proprietary EMUI 9.0 interface now receiving Android Pie for the Honor 8X. The company has been testing this build since back in January and the stable release is numbered EMUI 9.0.1. As this is a full Android build, it is a hefty update that weighs 3.14GB.
Honor says the update is rolling out to select users initially but will pick up pace in stages. The Honor 8X is one of the company’s newest smartphones in India, making its debut in the country back in October 2018.
Upon its launch, the handset was running Android Oreo on EMUI 8.2.0. Indian users of the Honor 8X can check for the update by heading to Settings > System > System update > Check for updates on their handset.
The Honor 8X is a solid mid-range smartphone that boasts an excellent 6.5-inch 1080 x 2340 screen with 397 PPI. Other specs include Huawei’s own Kirin 710 octa-core processor and Mali G51 GPU. Customers can choose between a 4GB/6GB RAM configuration and 64GB or 128GB of internal storage.
