Honor Starts Looking for Market Dominance

Huawei’s CEO has revealed details of how the telecommunications giant will foster its spin-off Honor brand in Asia.

The strategy includes store rollouts, an increasing focus on online sales and revised price positioning differentiating the two brands.

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer BG, posted details on his Sina Weibo account, predicting Huawei will become the world’s largest smartphone maker this year through its two-brand strategy. Honor on its own is tipped to become China’s second largest-selling smartphone brand and fourth in the world.

“The company will support Honor in the development of cutting-edge products and continue its investments in technology innovation, channel distribution and retail strategies while maintaining a firm dual-brand strategy between Honor and Huawei,” said Yu.

Both brands will maintain “a forward-thinking mindset and help create an intelligent, fully-connected world”.

While IDC figures show global shipments of smartphones fell by 3.1 per cent in the first three quarters of last year, Honor’s volumes soared 27.1 per cent.

Last year, Huawei’s consumer business grew by 48.4 per cent, outperforming the company’s carrier-network business and becoming the company’s largest revenue earner.

George Zhao, Honor’s president, told the recent Mobile World Congress that Honor is “on the brink of yet another breakthrough and there is no slowing down for us”.

“As the going gets tough, the tough get going. We’ll treat each day as an opportunity to deliver greater value to our fans. For Honor, the best is yet to come,” he said.