Honor Plans To Go Big Against Apple And Samsung In India

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has been on a mini-break in India in the past few months. The last phone the company brought to our shores was the flagship View 20 in January, which came with a punch-hole display and a 48-megapixel rear camera. However, this lull could just be the calm before the storm — or at least that’s what Honor wants us to believe.

On the sidelines of a press interaction held to announce the brand’s roadmap for India, Honor’s Global President, George Zhao gave us a glimpse into what we can expect from the Chinese brand that is increasingly looking at India as one of its most important markets worldwide.

Honor, which has registered a 700 per cent growth since it first stepped into the Indian market in October 2014, currently produces 10 million smartphones in the country every year. However, speaking to Times Now at the sidelines of the event, Zhao claimed that company plans to drive these numbers further up and become the biggest phone maker in India and use the momentum emerge as one of the top four phone makers globally.

Focus on the millennial crowd

While these may sound like lofty goals, Honor has charted out a clear roadmap to achieve these objectives. Despite acknowledging that India poses a big challenge because of the presence of strong competition from other Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, as well as, global giants like Apple and Samsung, Zhao claims that the phone maker with its revamped strategy will be able to effectively target the burgeoning millennial audience in the country.

Part of this strategy, Zhao explained will be to expand its product line-up in the country to include many exciting products that it currently sells globally, but not in India. One of these products that could help woo the millennial crowd is the 2019 refresh of the Honor Magic Book — one that Zhao hinted could be launched in India as early as the second quarter of this year.

More flagship phones for India?

Shedding light on the plans for the smartphone market in India, Zhao explained that in the coming months, Honor plans to bring a smartphone to India that will provide industry-leading flagship camera performance — one that would even surpass what is being currently offered by the likes of Apple and Samsung.

Now that’s a tall claim to make, but, Zhao explained that this smartphone won’t be just a one-off. While he declined to reveal the price segment that this device will be launched in or a tentative launch date for it, he did add that we can expect it to find way to Indian shores possibly by “the end of this quarter”.

He also revealed that until the end of the year, Honor has plans to keep the pressure up on the competition by bringing one such smartphone to India every quarter that Zhao claims will offer best in class camera and overall performance.―Times Now