Honor GT Series Returns to the Online Market: Can the New Series Ignite a Frenzy Among Young Consumers?

Honor GT Series Returns to the Online Market: Can the New Series Ignite a Frenzy Among Young Consumers?On October 30th, Honor held a flagship product launch event for its Magic7 series at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center, officially unveiling the Magic7 and Magic7 Pro. This event also coincided with the fourth anniversary of the new Honor

Honor GT Series Returns to the Online Market: Can the New Series Ignite a Frenzy Among Young Consumers?

On October 30th, Honor held a flagship product launch event for its Magic7 series at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center, officially unveiling the Magic7 and Magic7 Pro. This event also coincided with the fourth anniversary of the new Honor. As the event drew to a close, Honor invited Huang Guan-zhong, the lead guitarist of the former Beyond band, to perform the new Honor theme song "Broad Horizon," adding a unique touch to the celebration. In addition to the song as a tribute, Honor had another surprise: The first product from the brand-new Honor GT series will debut later this year.

The new Honor GT series is positioned as a "new performance technology series that understands young people better." It differs from the previous digital series performance editions and will integrate cutting-edge design with powerful performance to create a more distinctive model. More importantly, the Honor GT series will be the first in its return to the internet-focused approach.

From "Suffix" to "Independent": The Branding Strategy of the Honor GT Series

The emergence of the Honor GT series is not sudden. As early as 2022, Honor launched the X40GT, a phone equipped with the Snapdragon 888 flagship SoC. With its outstanding heat dissipation, performance, and frame-rate stability, it marked the first shot for the Honor GT series. Subsequently, Honor launched the Honor 80GT, blending performance with the stylish design of the digital series, further enriching the GT series product lineup.

However, with the adjustment of the positioning of the Honor X series and the digital series, GT, as a performance-enhanced suffix, began to seem somewhat awkward. For example, the Honor X50 emphasizes durability, while the X50GT boasts full-frame performance with an extra-large VC heat dissipation system. Having products with vastly different positioning within the same series can lead to confusion. Therefore, the GT model of the Honor digital series stalled at the 90 series, and subsequent Honor 100 series and Honor 200 series did not launch GT performance enhancements.

Beyond the adjustment of product positioning, Honor seemingly also needs a flagship product capable of igniting the online market to boost brand influence. Since the establishment of the new Honor, it has placed greater emphasis on offline market operations. While the Magic series and the digital series have been well-received in the offline market, their online discussions have been relatively low.

A data report from 2021 shows that through the release of the Magic3 series, Honor's offline market share surged by 14.6%, and experience store sales increased by over 70%. However, as smartphone manufacturers return to the online market, such as the establishment of the OnePlus Group, OnePlus' return to internet channels with the launch of Ace and AcePro models to occupy the market, and sub-brands like Redmi and iQOO attracting heated discussions with their K and Neo series respectively, Honor has become almost powerless in the vast online public sphere.

In fact, the offline market has always been an advantage for Honor. At the beginning of the new Honor's establishment, the brand was in a transitional period that needed to be reorganized and restructured. Sticking to its advantages and pushing towards the flagship market was the right choice. But Honor CEO Zhao Ming also stated that Honor now has sufficient technology reserves and it's time to return to the internet market, a domain Honor is most familiar with.

The Honor GT Series Directly Faces Redmi: Can It Become the New Online King?

Over the past few years, the Honor GT series has been presented as a suffix, such as the X40GT, X50GT, and Honor 90GT. They all boast cost-effectiveness and performance but suffer from a blurry positioning, impacting the brand image. The new Honor GT series will appear with an independent image, incorporating cutting-edge design while retaining the performance-first features of the GT series.

Honor CEO Zhao Ming also frankly expressed his hope that the product managers of the GT series and the digital series would engage in competition with each other, ultimately leading to better products. In fact, it's not just Honor that is redefining the positioning of its products. Its fierce rival, Redmi, has also completed a brand repositioning for its sub-series. Redmi has separated the Turbo series, previously hidden within the Note series suffix, and launched the Redmi Turbo3 this year, establishing the market level of each sub-series within the brand matrix.

We can understand Honor's new GT series as similar to the relationship between Huawei and the former Honor using flagship technology to infuse new vitality into the online market, enhance product market share, and reach a broader consumer base. At the same time, the new GT series may become an independent sub-brand in the future, similar to the relationship between Xiaomi and Redmi.

Unlike Redmi's goal of covering a massive consumer base, Honor explicitly states that the new GT series is designed to serve young consumers. Therefore, Honor will not hesitate to transfer flagship technology and ensure affordability, offering consumers more choices.

Advantages and Challenges of the Honor GT Series

In a post-event interview at the Magic7 series launch, Honor CEO responded to why the company chose this specific point in time to reshape the Honor GT series. The reason is simple: Honor now has sufficient technology and innovation overflow to support the production of a new series. This implies that the new GT series will need to compete not only on cost-effectiveness and performance but also on innovation.

Over the past four years since the establishment of the new Honor, it has gradually formed its unique technological barrier. Firstly, Honor focuses on eye protection technology, driving the development of eye protection technology in the smartphone industry. For example, in the newly released Magic7 series, Honor pioneered the use of AI eye protection models combined with hardware-level circular polarization technology, achieving all-day, all-angle eye protection. Furthermore, Honor established the Green Oasis Eye Protection Laboratory and deployed a professional team to develop eye protection solutions for screens. These flagship technologies have also been transferred downwards. For example, the Honor 200 series and the Honor X60 series both utilize industry-leading eye protection technology and dimming strategies.

Secondly, Honor's MagicOS9.0 is currently the only mobile operating system that can achieve L3-level AI intelligent task decision-making. Recently, you may have seen Zhao Ming using the YOYO intelligent body to order 2000 cups of Luckin coffee at the launch event. This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the numerous AI features of MagicOS9.0. Combined with the GT series' focus on performance, we may see MagicOS9.0 game AI model technology in this series.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly: imaging. In fact, many mid-range phones don't prioritize imaging capabilities, as the target audience for these products primarily seeks smooth and functional devices. Even though Honor hasn't partnered with imaging brands like some other brands, its Eagle Eye instantaneous capture feature has matured through years of refinement. Moreover, Honor was the first to emphasize the importance of instantaneous capture in mobile imaging and has gained validation from the market this year. Almost all of the flagship product launch events this year have emphasized instantaneous capture as a key marketing point.

Honor's technological strengths are actually areas that devices primarily focused on performance don't typically prioritize, creating significant growth potential for the new GT series. If the new GT series can simultaneously incorporate eye protection, AI, imaging, and extreme performance release, its arrival will pose a significant threat to its competitors.

However, looking at the mid-range smartphone market in 2024, from performance and imaging to durability and ultra-long battery life, consumers have already exhausted the boundaries of what they seek, and the competition is fierce. Whether Honor can successfully return to the online market with the new GT series and capture the attention of young consumers ultimately depends on the performance of the first model released at the end of the year.