Leading consumer technology brand Honor has reiterated its commitment to becoming a global tech brand. To achieve this goal, the brand is pressing ahead with a new product strategy, which leverages smartphones as the core, while also focusing on developing other connected products.
To know more about the brand’s regional strategy and its latest products, we catch up with Zac Li, General Manager of Honor in the GCC. A senior executive with over 12 years of experience in the telecommunication and software business industry, Li has led the Honor team in GCC countries since 2015. Li plans to replicate this success across the wider GCC markets, and shares details on the brand’s strategy and products with us here.
What is your core strategy in the GCC?
As a consumer-centric company, we are committed to innovating and challenging industry benchmarks, solving users pain points and bringing them best-in-class products. The Magic Series is the perfect example of Honor’s technological idealism and can-do attitude.
In 2022, Honor will continue all-scenario smart life strategy, focusing on the integration of connectivity and computing capabilities. Honor will continue to promote interconnectivity between multiple devices, multiple systems and different applications, creating an intelligent world with seamless connections and services. Honor will continue to go beyond and explore the vast opportunity in the global market. We are determined to grow internationally and are empowering our local market teams to thrive in their diverse markets. We will focus on both local and overseas markets and will leverage our comprehensive understanding of global consumers to build on our core capabilities and have a forward-looking mindset.
How would you describe Honor’s much publicised “new journey” in the GCC smartphone market?
We have listened to our users to develop better software features that can cater to different user behaviours and scenarios. Our product development cycle revolves around the consumer, and we invest in understanding trends and monitoring consumer feedback.
Many of our fans are looking forward to the return of Honor products. Their support and feedback motivate us to continue providing exceptional products and services to elevate consumers’ experience like never before. Our aim is to have the highest market share for smartphones with the Android operating system and to achieve the second ranking for smartphone shipments.
We are capable of covering end-to-end operations, which give us a very solid starting point as a startup company. From R&D, supply chain, and manufacturing, to sales, marketing, service, and finance, our comprehensive setup helps us stay competitive.
What is Honor’s brand positioning, and how does it apply to the global smartphone market?
Honor is committed to becoming a global iconic tech brand and enabling a smart life across all scenarios and all channels, for all people. With a strategic focus on innovation, quality and service, we are dedicated to developing forward-looking technology that empowers people around the world to go beyond. To achieve this, we are upgrading our product portfolio and operations to offer products specifically designed for high-end and general users. We aim to have a comprehensive portfolio catering to different price ranges. Our premium flagship Honor Magic Series is a testament to best in class, innovative technology. Our high-end class N Series sets industry standards with its aesthetic design and superior user experience, while the X series represents the accessibility of our technology for all. A demonstration of our continuous innovation is the launch of Honor Magic V, our first flagship foldable and the latest Honor Magic4 series which beats multiple industry benchmarks, taking the Honor Magic Flagship to a whole new level.
What are the unique selling points of the Honor X series?
The Honor X8 boasts an advanced memory capability, and is equipped with Honor RAM Turbo(6GB+2GB). This technology expands RAM storage by compressing background apps and enabling the Honor X8 to simultaneously open more applications without compromising on efficiency.
The technology stops background processes from getting killed when users switch apps, ensuring users can take a call and write a message and the apps will still be running in the background.
How does Honor RAM Turbo help improve the user experience?
With smartphones being used for gaming and watching videos along with texting and calling, sometimes at the same time, switching between tasks can lead to “background process killing”, leaving many users frustrated when their game automatically ends, or an app suddenly closes when taking a phone call. This happens more often when the phone has a low RAM.
Honor’s self-developed RAM Turbo technology expands RAM storage by compressing background apps and enabling the Honor X8 to simultaneously open more applications without compromising on efficiency. Offering a more seamless user experience and enabling users to carry on with their tasks with a low latency, the technology helps “hot start” more background processes and apps, ensuring users can take a call or write a message and the apps will still be running in the background, and waiting for users to pick up exactly where they left off. In a hot start, all the system has to do is bring your app’s activity to the foreground and keep more apps to be presented in memory.
What is unique about the Honor X8’s design?
To accomplish this industry breakthrough, Honor developed an innovative glue dispensing solution for the Honor X8, removing the gap on the middle frame bezel and filling adhesive between the display and the middle frame bezel.
The super narrow bezel also presents challenges when it comes to the antenna design of the smartphone. To ensure signal transmission performance, traditionally an antenna requires at least 0.7mm of space and unlike conventional antenna designs, achieving the final super narrow bezel means there is a 30 per cent reduction in space for the antenna. Honor has world leading systematic and accurate testing capability labs, including a Software Automatic Testing Centre, Telecommunication Test Lab, Reliability Lab, Camera Lab, Audio Lab, and Antenna Lab. To ensure the brand meets operator requirements and industry standards, Honor has devised more than 3,000 smartphone tests and more than 800 tests for key device capabilities, including camera and battery performance, across multi-dimensional and multi-level testing to ensure superior quality of all Honor products.
Who is the Honor X8 aimed at?
The Honor X8 is designed for those seeking a slim and stylish gadget that delivers great performance, all at an affordable price point. It caters to the needs of those interested in music, film, and gaming. It is also a great choice for entry-level professionals and students who see the smartphone as a necessity to stay connected with their friends and family, and a vital tool to access entertainment at their fingertips.
What is your sales forecast for the Honor X8?
Honor focuses on developing world-class products and experiences, as well as developing our own capabilities to better serve our global customers. We are confident in the Honor X8’s performance in global markets thanks to its compelling features and its competitive price point.
What are the other models in the Honor X Series and other products?
The Honor X8 is the newest member of Honor’s reliable Honor X Series. In addition to the X8, Honor will also launch the new X9 and X7, bringing the brand’s powerful technology to even more global smartphone users.
We are excited about bringing more smartphones, PC, wearable products to consumers and look forward to launching products from our portfolio in 2022 and beyond.
