Honor recently made waves at the Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, where it unveiled its latest flagship smartphones – the Honor Magic5 and Magic5 Pro. According to Honor CEO George Zhao, the company is eyeing big growth in Europe and treating 2023 as its “year 1” in the region, with plans to roll out its devices globally in the coming quarter.

The Honor Magic5 Pro and Honor Magic Vs will receive 3 years of Android upgrades and 5 years of security patches. Additionally, the Magic Vs, which is one of the lightest foldables with a vertical hinge, is poised to give the Samsung Galaxy Fold lineup some competition. While foldables are expected to explode in sales once they shed more weight and get thinner with better battery life, Zhao doesn’t see them entirely replacing traditional bar phones. Instead, he expects the two to co-exist, with clamshells and horizontal foldables also remaining in demand.

Honor has been making inroads in Europe, treating the region as a second home, with an R&D and product center dedicated specifically to Europe. Zhao believes that having a strong portfolio of devices is key to driving growth in the region and is open to the idea of opening physical stores, but for now, is focused on building partnerships with carriers and retailers.

However, the US market remains a challenge for Honor, and the company is taking a step-by-step approach to penetrate the tough market.

Overall, Honor is focused on providing innovative devices that cater to different user needs and preferences, while also ensuring longer software support for its devices. With its latest foldable devices, the company is looking to make a mark in the global smartphone market and continue its growth trajectory.

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At its recent launch event, the China-based Honor, which became an independent brand splitting from Huawei earlier this year, launched its new devices, including the Honor Magic 3 series flagship smartphones and Honor Tab V7 Pro.

Just after the launch event, in an interview, George Zhao, CEO of Honor, revealed that the offline sales for the company accounted for more than 70 percent of its overall sale. This is quite an interesting development given that Honor mostly positions its devices in the mid-range segment and it was the leading company for online sales in China.

Given that majority of the company’s sales are now through offline stores, George Zhao says that Honor will now be speeding up the work of expanding the brand’s footprints in the offline market.

During its peak, Honor-branded smartphones accounted for about 16.7 percent of the market share in China. However, it fell to about 3 percent in the first quarter of 2021, just as the company split from Huawei.

However, the company has now returned to the top three list of smartphone manufacturers in its home country China, with a market share of 14.6 percent. Not just China, Honor has also resumed business operations in about 50 countries around the world and is now focusing on recovering the lost market share.

Zhao acknowledges that the overseas market share of Honor has dropped to almost zero but the company is now hoping for a V-shaped recovery. The company has launched promising new devices and with more products in the pipeline, there’s a possibility that Honor could bring back the days of glory that it once witnessed, before the United States imposed sanctions on Huawei. We’ll just have to wait and watch.

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• Xiaomi Mi Pad 5 Pro vs Honor Tab V7 Pro: Specs Comparison

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Honor held its first product launch event for H2 2020 earlier today in China. The brand announced the long-teased Honor X10 Max and Honor 30 Youth Edition. Before unveiling these handsets, in his opening speech, Zhao Ming (aka George Zhao), the president of Honor proudly revealed his brand ranked number one in H1 2020 across online channels in China.

Huawei and Honor branded smartphones witnessed an increase in their sales in China after the US ban. The company (both brands combined) has been ranking number one in its home market in terms of smartphone sales continuously for a long time. It even managed to outperform Samsung as the world’s largest smartphone maker in both April and May.

Also, it makes sense for Honor to be the largest online brand instead of Huawei. Because Honor is a youth-focused brand and these customers prefer shopping online than from brick and mortar stores. The brand’s president also mentioned that Honor was the only brand to grow compared to its last year’s figure and other companies.

Anyway, this data is from the company and there are no other data from research firms to confirm the claim. But it could be true nevertheless given the sheer amount of new products the brand launched in China since the beginning of 2020.

UP NEXT: Honor Play4 Pro sells for exorbitant prices for its IR temperature sensor feature in the US

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Yesterday (15th April 2020), Honor, the Huawei subsidiary, had unveiled the company’s latest mobile processor, the Kirin 985 SoC. The chipset is an octa core processor and is 5G enabled. Now, George Zhao, the President of Honor, has stated that the chipset will be positioned between the flagship Kirin 990 and mid range Kirin 820 chipset, and will be aimed at device priced under 3000 Yuan (roughly 420 US Dollars).

The HiSilicon Kirin 985 5G chipset has been proprietarily developed and is the third 5G ready mobile processor that the company has launched. In an interview, the senior Honor official answered questions regarding its newly launched chip. According to George, the Kirin 985 SoC is meant to act as a bridge and fill the gap between the Kirin 990 and Kirin 820.

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The processor is a flagship unit and will be shipped with devices carrying a price tag under 3,000 Yuan. In other words, it will be a more viable offering in budget flagship smartphones that does not compromise too much on performance over the company’s faster Kirin 990 5G SoC. The Chinese tech giant is placing an increasing emphasis on 5G networking as it is the future of smartphones and cellular data.

The HiSilicon Kirin 985 houses an integrated 5G modem alongside the new Mali-G77 GPU. It also features the same dual core NPU as the Kirin 990 and has been specifically designed for improvements on “processing power, communication capabilities, thermal and structural design.” Previously, we had reported on the processor crossing the 380,000 mark on AnTuTu benchmark ratings, so it seems that the chip is powerful, to say the least.

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It was rumored that Honor has a large stock of 4G smartphones but now the brand’s president George Zhao denies that allegation in an interview with a Chinese media called C114. Also, he boasted his brand to have performed better than March 2019 even during these hard times.

Like any other smartphone brand, Honor too lacked supplies during the COVID-19 crisis in China, confirmed the brand’s president. But still, it managed to do well than competitors and was even the country’s second-largest smartphone brand in February 2020.

Denying the large pile of 4G stock rumour, he said if it was true they could have set a new sales record in March 2020, albeit doing better than last year. Also, now as the effect of coronavirus is fading away, he expects Honor to further grow rapidly.

Taking about switching from 4G to 5G networks, Mr Zhao said the process is gradual and hence companies have been launching dual-mode (SA & NSA) 5G smartphones. He also said that 5G phones will get cheaper in the coming months just like the brand’s newly launched Honor 30S.

Last but not least, he confirms Honor will offer more value for money products later on this year like the upcoming Honor 30 series and Honor X series.

UP NEXT: Honor 30 Render Leak reveals a 50MP Sony IMX700 camera sensor

(Via)

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Honor made some waves after officially announcing that the Honor TV yesterday. Honor President George Zhao made some pretty big claims, like how he wants to revolutionize the TV industry with the upcoming smart TV. In a recent interview, he further elaborated on his thoughts regarding the television industry and Honor‘s upcoming product.

According to George Zhao, the TV hardware industry is in dire need of R&D. He claims that the television was once the hub of information for families, but smartphones have since taken that spot, relegating televisions to purely entertainment purposes. The reason for this is supposedly the absolute lack of innovation that the TV industry has seen, especially in comparison to the huge strides made by the smartphone and computer industries.

Honor will not compete in price wars?

To this end, George Zhao also claims that the Honor TV will not be competing much in terms of pricing. Instead, Honor will be investing heavily on the R&D side of things to ensure that they can push out “the future of TV”, which he calls Smart Screens. Instead of going head to head with competitors in an already saturated market, he wants to expand the market with brand new high-end and innovative options to push the industry forward.

Honor also wants to avoid direct competition or conflict with already established TV companies. George Zhao tells us how Huawei had previously provided TV chips and software processing for the TV industry, as well as how those connections have helped them in the development of their own product. It makes sense that they wouldn’t want to sully that.

Perhaps most interesting is how the Honor President wants the TV to be the central hub of a household. He claims that the smart screen should become the emotional center of the family as an audio-visual entertainment center, information sharing center, control management center and multi-device interaction center. He also explains that the specs and features should reflect this, though we’re not sure what features he has in mind.

Regardless, it seems George Zhao is incredibly optimistic on the future of the TV industry, as well as extremely confident in his own product. According to the man, the TV industry has barely begun to evolve. He also throws in an interesting little tidbit, saying Huawei themselves may be joining in on the Smart TV market in the future. This is a lot to digest, but we’re confident Honor knows what they’re doing, and we look forward to seeing the results.

UP NEXT: Honor MagicBook Pro teased to come with full-screen display and improved performance

(Source)

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On one hand, Huawei is launching the 5G foldable smartphone – Huawei Mate X this month in China. Whereas on the other side, its sub-brand, Honor will launch a 5G smartphone in Q4 2019, confirms Honor’s president George Zhao in an interview in Shanghai. The brand aimed to lure young customers will be a little late to join the 5G revolution.

Must Check: Honor’s President confirms its first 5G smartphone will launch in 2019

George Zhao was seen confident as he talked about the “rich technology reserves” that the company hold in different fields such as 5G, photography, AI and other aspects. The company is “confident” to use these technologies to make a perfect 5G device by the end of this year. The new development approves the recent claim made by George Zhao in another interview about launching the 5G smartphone in the second half of 2019.

He even talked about the company’s plan to improve the overseas earnings by over 50 percent of the total revenue. Huawei and Honor already grew by 47.3 percent in the time when the smartphone market is on a decline. Honor is marching ahead of other brands with the help of recent innovations such as Ark Compiler to improve Android efficiency, Quad camera setup for better photography and enhanced Bluetooth operation with better range and efficiency.

Huawei and Honor both are working to flourish the market by offering a vast variety of products. Huawei is developing a whole new ecosystem with products like smart speakers, wearables, IoT, smartphones, etc.

Up Next: Honor developing under-display camera technology, confirms George Zhao

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As most of the smartphone manufacturers are working to place the front camera under-display, Honor has also jumped into the pursuit. While talking about the innovations in a recent interview, Honor president George Zhao confirms the development of in-display camera technology. Honor has already developed a prototype device featuring the under display camera though it is currently experiencing some problems.

He believes the under-display camera technology is not mature enough to exist on the Honor devices which are coming soon. However, he considers placing the new technology on the relevant commercial products in the near future.

Read More: Honor won’t split with Huawei, says George Zhao

According to Zhao, the punch hole display will become an essential part of the mainstream smartphone design in the future. Various devices such as Samsung Galaxy S10 and Honor 20 Pro already carries the new technology. Honor is the first smartphone manufacturer to use the punch hole camera design on the LCD display.

A few other manufacturers have already patented their own take on the new technology. Samsung and Xiaomi are also developing their own under display camera technology. The manufacturers are looking forward to innovating ways to improve the screen-to-body ratio on smartphones.

Up Next: Meizu CEO Jack Wong says hole-in display is not really the best solution

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Huawei’s Honor sub-brand has always prided itself as an online only brand. However, that has changed as they have now opened a brick and mortar store in Myanmar.The Myanmar Honor Store is its first international walk-in store.

CEO of Honor, George Zhao, who was at the official opening said the store opening is an important milestone for the brand in the Southeast Asian Market. He also announced four new Honor smartphones in the country. They are the Honor 7X, Honor V9 Play/Honor 6C Pro, Honor 6X, and Honor Play 6.

You may be wondering why none of the high-end Honor phones weren’t announced. The explanation provided is that Myanmar is still a developing smartphone market in Southeast Asia and average income is not high, so high-priced Honor phones won’t do well.

It is not surprising that Honor is including an offline presence into its plans. While millennials generally do their shopping online, regular brick and mortar stores are also pretty important for a hands-on experience with devices as well as after-sales services. Xiaomi is one brand that has also moved from being an online-only store to setting up brick and mortar stores.

The new Honor store will not only sell devices and provide after-sales services but will also serve as a hangout spot for young Honor fans.

READ MORE: Honor Devices Are The Most Sold Chinese Phones Online, Huawei Beaten As Well

Honor plans to open more stores across the world as it moves towards its goal of being one of the world’s top five mobile brands by 2020. It also plans to grow its presence in markets like France, Spain, Italy, and Russia.

(Source)

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