Huawei first-half global smartphone shipments jump 25 percent

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's third-largest smartphone vendor, on Tuesday said it shipped 60.5 million smartphones globally in the first half of 2016, a 25 percent rise from a year before. Shenzhen-based Huawei, which competes with Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc, reported a 41 percent increase in its consumer business group revenue to 77.4 billion yuan ($11.6 billion) thanks to strong sales of high-end smartphones, the company said in a statement. "We saw particularly fast growth in traditionally high-end smartphone markets such as Europe and emerging markets including North Africa, Central Asia and Latin America," Huawei's head of consumer business Richard Yu said in a statement. ($1 = 6.6779 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Yimou Lee; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)