Huawei is selling its smartphone through the WeChat app

Chinese manufacturer Huawei recently launched a new smartphone in China and to sell it the company looked towards an unconventional sales channel: a messaging application. WeChat is one of the most widely used messaging application in China and Huawei teamed up with it to sell the new Honor 6 smartphone. This partnership became possible after online retailer JD.com integrated a virtual store in WeChat earlier this year. Tencent’s WeChat is already widely used for customer service and marketing in China. Selling directly to customers is still a new idea but its starting to take off nonetheless. JD said that through its WeChat store some 550,000 customers either pre-ordered the Honor 6 or took part in a sale campaign prior to the launch of the smartphone.