Honor GT: A New Beginning for Honor, the Future of Fast Technology

Honor GT: A New Beginning for Honor, the Future of Fast TechnologyHow many times, facing cold eyes and ridicule, have we never given up on the ideals in our hearts? Last night, the end of the Honor Magic7 series launch event, with Wong Kwan Chung's song "Broad Sky", pushed the entire event to its peak, arguably the most successful encore of all phone launches this year. When Zhao Ming shouted out the new Honor Slogan "Gobeyond", I believe everyone present was moved, whether you are a Honor fan or not

Honor GT: A New Beginning for Honor, the Future of Fast Technology

How many times, facing cold eyes and ridicule, have we never given up on the ideals in our hearts? Last night, the end of the Honor Magic7 series launch event, with Wong Kwan Chung's song "Broad Sky", pushed the entire event to its peak, arguably the most successful encore of all phone launches this year. When Zhao Ming shouted out the new Honor Slogan "Gobeyond", I believe everyone present was moved, whether you are a Honor fan or not.

Four years ago, Honor became independent from Huawei, starting from scratch. No one knows better than CEO Zhao Ming the difficulties and obstacles along the way. Over the past four years, the Oasis eye protection screen, Eagle Eye capture, Giant Rhinoceros glass, Qinghai Lake battery, Hongyan communication technology, have been successively launched. Full-form foldable screens, breaking the thinness limit of foldable screens, the YOYO intelligent body, the first to bring mobile phones into the era of autonomous driving, jointly launching the world's first AI intelligent body grading standard with other companies, a series of hardcore innovations and pioneering technological breakthroughs have brought users a shocking experience. Honor has stubbornly come out step by step, relying on the powerful pillar of "not being defined" in four words.

Four years of independence, a new Honor starts its journey, with Honor GT taking the first step. Looking back from 2024, it is time for Honor to start over. The new Honor is using its own name to go to its own distant place. And the new Honor GT is the first step in this new journey for Honor!

Before the end of the launch event, Honor CEO Zhao Ming officially announced the establishment of the Honor GT series, positioning the new product as "a new performance technology series that understands young people better", and confirmed that the first product will be released at the end of the year. From the product definition, the Honor GT series is positioned as a "fast technology" trendy performance product online, combining "avant-garde design" and "powerful performance". The most noteworthy point is that Honor's series of flagship technologies will be quickly and universally applied to the Honor GT series. This means that young consumers can enjoy Honor's cutting-edge technology at a lower entry price, experiencing the smooth user experience brought by fast technology, trend, and performance.

In the four years of struggling and pioneering alone, Honor has always been deeply rooted in the fertile soil of China's industrial chain and innovation mechanism, delivering an incredible track record. Looking forward now, the new Honor clearly has a clearer strategic direction and product line planning, using the high-end flagship Honor Magic7 to firmly lock in the high-end market, using AI to achieve dimensionality reduction attacks, using the Honor GT series to popularize innovative technology, using flagship cutting-edge technology to assist product innovation in the online market, providing younger consumers with richer and more comprehensive purchase choices, and thus leveraging a larger market.

Honor GT for Honor is like Honor for Huawei back then. The birth of Honor GT stems from the overflow of Honor's technology and innovation. When asked why Honor chose to launch Honor GT now, Zhao Ming said frankly that only with enough technology and innovation overflow can we support a brand new series, and make Honor GT's "fast technology" possible. He said that Honor has been building a core technology systematization capability over the past few years, steadily innovating from communication, battery technology, screen, photography, to operating system. In Zhao Ming's view, the path Honor GT is taking is the same as Honor's in the past. Just like the two brands of Huawei and Honor back then, the prerequisite is that there is a certain amount of basic overflow. Now, Honor's core technology reserves can face the future, "We have enough confidence," Zhao Ming said.

Regarding whether the development direction of Honor GT will conflict with the Honor digital series, Zhao Ming said that the Honor GT series is positioned as a performance series, while the Honor digital series is positioned as enjoyable technology, with some differences in positioning and different target user groups. He hopes that the two product managers can "fight" internally first, each serving their own positioning user groups and consumers well, and both should compete in innovation and better meet the needs of consumers. If Honor GT sells better than the Honor digital series, that's the Honor spirit we're used to.

Honor is originally the number one internet brand, and Honor GT is independent and not targeted at any competitor. As early as 2017, before becoming independent from Huawei, Honor surpassed many manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Meizu, becoming the top internet mobile phone brand in China. According to data provided by CINNO Research, Honor's cumulative sales reached 49.68 million units and its sales revenue reached 71.6 billion yuan from January to November 2017. Sales revenue surpassed Xiaomi by more than 10 billion yuan, nearly four times Meizu's sales revenue.

In Zhao Ming's view, Honor does not target any competitor, and does not believe that a company would advertise that it is not making money selling phones and is selling them at a loss. Honor has always insisted on providing consumers with enough value. Consumers buy products, and the most important characteristic of products is their use value. If you don't provide enough use value or impress consumers, the price is actually meaningless.

Honor was born from the internet and online, and Honor GT will inherit the core genes of Honor's original internet mobile phones, strengthen its brand appeal to young people, and develop a path suitable for Honor's growth. Doing internet phones, doing brands for young people, is precisely Honor's strength. Currently, many mobile phone manufacturers have launched their own sub-brands. Regarding whether Honor GT will become a sub-brand of Honor, Zhao Ming believes that today's Honor is still growing, and for a period of time, the GT series will be presented as a Honor performance series, and its positioning is still aimed at young people, a performance phone.

In my opinion, Honor GT's official announcement has three meanings.

First, for the Honor brand, after years of deep cultivation of omnichannel operations, mastering offline market channels, and locking in the high-end market with the Magic series and foldable screens, under the conditions of technological and innovative resource overflow, it is returning to the internet track, launching a full-scale counterattack against online channels. This symbolizes Honor's mature development four years after becoming independent, marking a comprehensive reinforcement of its organizational structure, operating system, technological foundation, and product layout. With the innate experience of being the former number one internet mobile phone brand and the benefits of its family's flagship-level technology, Honor GT is already halfway to success.

Since becoming independent, Honor has adhered to a long-term technology strategy of "people-centric", choosing the "innovation-driven" path that faces the future. Looking at today from tomorrow, compared to the prevailing "innovation monetization" approach in the industry that emphasizes short-term benefits, this is undoubtedly a difficult but correct path. Today, Honor's persistence has gradually begun to bear fruit. And the Honor GT series is the latest result of Honor's above-mentioned strategy. It is expected to bring significant improvements in screen, battery, and imaging in the future, greatly stimulating consumer's desire to upgrade their phones, driving the industry towards a performance revolution, and achieving the popularization of technology. At the same time, it will inject new vitality into the Honor brand, further shaping Honor's image of cutting-edge and innovation in the minds of young people.

Secondly, the first product in the Honor GT series will be launched at the end of the year, which will further fill in the gaps in Honor's product line and become an important driver for Honor to leverage a larger market share in China's mobile phone market. For users, it also provides a richer and more affordable option for buying phones, allowing users with low budgets to enjoy the charm brought by flagship-level technology. It's definitely a good thing for consumers.

Looking at the domestic mobile phone market in 2024, online phone models from various manufacturers are accelerating their iterations, and iPhone's new products are participating in the Double 11 promotion with price cuts. According to the latest research report from Counterpoint Research, China's smartphone shipments in Q3 2024 grew 2.3% year-on-year, achieving positive year-on-year growth for four consecutive quarters. The market is expected to achieve its first annual growth in five years. This further confirms the market warming trend in 2024. The full year is expected to achieve a low single-digit year-on-year growth, boosting industry confidence. Honor GT series chose to announce its release at this time, leveraging the momentum of the Double 11 online promotion to raise expectations, and releasing the news of flagship technology popularization in advance. Honor's move is a good one.

IDC data shows that China's smartphone shipments are expected to be 286 million units in 2024. Although this is a significant drop from the 467 million units in 2016, China still has 1 billion smartphones in use, meaning there are still upgrade opportunities in the long cycle. It is estimated that by 2025, one-third of phones in the global market will be new generation AI phones, and by 2028, the proportion of new generation AI phones in the domestic market will exceed