Chinese tech company Honor will launch a foldable phone this year, CEO George Zhao told CNBC at Mobile World Congress 2024. It marks the company’s first foray into the vertically foldable smartphone style that has been popularized by brands like Samsung and Motorola.
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BARCELONA – Honor will launch a foldable foldable phone this year, the company’s CEO told CNBC, marking the Chinese tech company’s first foray into the vertically foldable smartphone style that has been popularized by brands such as Samsung and Motorola.
“Foldables” refer to smartphones with displays that fold. There are two styles on the market right now: smartphones that fold like a book and those that fold vertically like an old flip phone but with no visible hinge.
The move to launch a foldable is in line with Honor’s push into the premium end of the market, where it is looking to challenge the likes of Samsung and Samsung. Apple.
“We are preparing for the launch of the flip phone this year, now that internally we are in the final phase,” George Zhao, Honor’s CEO, told CNBC in an exclusive interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
“We are very positive about leaflets for the future.”
Honor already has several foldable phones on the market. The latest is the Honor Magic V2 launched last year. But all of Honor’s current foldable devices are book-style.
Honor already has several smartphones on the market that close like a book, such as the Magic V2 launched in July 2023 shown here. The Chinese tech company is now preparing to launch a vertical folding-style smartphone, its CEO George Zhao told CNBC at the Mobile World Congress.
Honor
Entering flip foldables will expose Honor to a different price point. Flip-style phones, like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, are often priced cheaper than landscape-style foldable devices.
Foldables are seen as high-end devices in the smartphone world. According to Counterpoint Research, sales of premium smartphones, those above $600, will likely grow in 2023 while the overall market has declined. This is one of the reasons why Honor is targeting the high-end market.
According to Counterpoint Research, sales of foldable phones will increase 40% year over year to reach 22 million units in 2024. But Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research, said demand for the foldable flip could slow because “expectations aggressive pricing for the flip form factor have been difficult.”
“I believe this will create a market gap for new suppliers to enter or expand into the flip segment and test the market.”
Honor, a spin-off from Huawei in 2020 following US sanctions, has sought to thrive as an independent brand. Honor found immediate success in China and is now focusing on growth in international markets, where it is not yet among the top 5 players globally.
Zhao said his hope for the next three to five years is for overseas sales volumes to surpass China.
Honor’s AI boost
Like most device makers at MWC, Honor touted the potential of artificial intelligence.
For Zhao, the value of the technology will come when a device can anticipate what you want to do next.
For example, you might receive a message from a friend inviting you to dinner, and the device will be able to anticipate whether you want to open the restaurant’s name in a mapping app or reply to the message.
“In the future, Honor’s strategy will be artificial intelligence to reconstruct user interaction. It will be based on intent, user interaction. So maybe when you interact with your phone, it can understand what your needs,” Zhao said.
At MWC, Honor showed off an AI-powered feature on its Magic 6 Pro phone that can track the user’s eyes.
The company also demonstrated a chatbot built on Meta’s Llama 2 AI model.
Last year, Honor announced plans to go public. Zhao said preparations for the initial public offering are underway, but there is no definitive timeline or destination for the listing.