A look at Honor, the unsung hero that drives Huawei’s rise as world’s No. 2 phone maker
Honor is projecting that its international sales will account for about half of total sales in 4 to 5 years. It is targeting 20 overseas markets including the US, India and Russia
Honor, the sub-smartphone brand by China’s Huawei is living up to its name as the unsung hero that has helped the tech giant overtake Apple and Samsung in sales at home and abroad.
In mainland China, it has also clobbered domestic maker Xiaomi in the most competitive budget phone sales market segment, which Huawei had long vowed to avoid.
Honor, launched four years ago, has thrived by taking advantage of its parent’s more established brand name – Huawei. It shipped 26.3 million handsets in China in the first half of 2017, according to Chinese market research firm Sino-Market Research, one of the few agencies that provides a separate set of Honor sales data.
But it was now time for Honor to shake off its inherent image as a Huawei-branded phone, said Zhao Ming, Honor’s president.
“The dual-brand strategy [within the Huawei group] has never been clearer to us than now,” said Zhaoin an interview with the South China Morning Post in Xian on Wednesday.
“Honor is an internet brand that only targets young people. There might be certain technically complementary effects between Huawei and Honor, but as a brand, Honor will become more independent in the future.”
