Huwaei Technologies is reaping the benefits of copying Xiaomi's online-only strategy. The company has recorded 20 million units sold in just one year for their low-priced Honor brand according to Reuters.

"E-commerce is massively changing the traditional channels for the smartphone industry, and we needed to go in that direction too," Honor brand Jeff Liu said in an interview in Beijing, where he unveiled the Honor 6 Plus smartphone last week.

Huawei was open about the fact that they have followed suit when they saw how the upstart Xiaomi was able to break into the global market in just five years. The latter is now valued at $45 billion and has sold more than 15.8 million smartphone units from July to September. The same period, Huawei posted 15.9 million units sold.

Aside from the online-only tactic, Xiaomi's aggressive pricing has given the company a sizeable amount of profitability.

In June, Huawei boldly declared that it can beat Xiaomi in the race to be China's top smartphone brand. This was after Bloomberg Businessweek dubbed Xiaomi the "hottest smartphone brand in China".

Shao Yang, VP for marketing at Huawei Consumer Business Group, said that one of their biggest advantages over Xiaomi is their reputation and mentioned "trust is more important".

China is a huge market. With Apple being able to penetrate country, the battle for supremacy among local smartphone makers will reach another level, sooner or later.

Recently, Huawei Techbologies has entered into a partnership with Dr Peng Telecom and Media Group Ltd to expand their big data, cloud computing and ultra-wideband portfolio.

According to analysts, 2015 is going to be a very close race between these Chinese smartphone giants. Huawei's Honor brand is pushing its limits to Europe and Northern America, while Xiaomi is going to concentrate on Indian and Chinese markets.