Formerly youth-focused phone brand Honor is “back,” according to the company’s CEO, George Zhao.
But the Honor that’s back is looking a little different from the company we knew before.
But the decision to sell Honor was about more than just guaranteeing Honor’s survival.
That product is the Honor Magic 4 Pro, unveiled last week at MWC in Barcelona.
For Zhao, independence meant the opportunity to show what he and his team were truly capable of.
“Now we are free to enter any area and any price segment.”
That doesn’t mean Zhao will attempt to make Honor big in the US straight off the bat.
For now his target is to grow in Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
Foldables and beyond
Already, Honor has made significant progress in China.
Zhao’s first big decisions for Honor as an independent company were in product development.
It’ll face challenges.
Innovation within the mobile industry has reached something of a bottleneck, said Zhao.
The question he’s been mulling is how to break out of it.
His approach so far has been to value customer needs as highly as technological innovation.
He’s hoping this will allow Honor to break through that ceiling.
Honor didn’t stop at the Honor V last year.
It also released a range of phones, tablets, PCs and accessories.
“They always pursue the best in class,” he said.
“They say, Honor can solve these challenges, these difficulties, these problems.
This spirit and attitude really is the future [of the company].”
The situation has improved, said Zhao, and continues to do so.
For many years it exclusively used its homegrown Kirin chipset in its phones.
“Honor will rely on global ecosystem partners,” he said.
Zhao knows he has set his team a difficult challenge, but he believes the rewards are worthwhile.
