Before 2020, Honor was a Huawei sub-brand and its function and design were similar to the parent. Now Honor has its distinct style and resolves to be an international technology brand
George Zhao, CEO of Honor (Chinese: 荣耀), a handset and smart gadget maker that was spun off from Huawei, said that Honor would push into overseas markets to drive sales growth. He said the company would not hit a bottleneck in the next five years.
According to research firm IDC, China’s smart phone shipment reached 74.2 million in Q1 2022, representing a year-on-year growth of 14.1%. Honor captured 18.2% of the Chinese market, totaling 13.5 million, up 291.7% from the same period last year.
Honor was the second-largest smart phone vendor in China, after Oppo, which shipped 13.7 million units.
Speaking about efforts to expand market share, “it is a natural result for Honor and we have to ensure the quality of products,” said Zhao.
Honor has 12,000 employees, more than 50% of which are developers. Zhao also disclosed that Honor would continue to implement technological innovations, and the proportion of R&D investment would be much higher than that of marketing expense, he added.
Since Honor was divested from Huawei in November 2020 and sold to Digital China and the Shenzhen government for CNY 100 billion, the smartphone brand has been running more than one year. Zhao stated in January that Honor would compete with Apple, with its products rivaling or even surpassing the Cupertino-based behemoth.