If the Berlin International Broadcasting Fair (IFA), which takes place from Friday 1er to Tuesday, September 5, still remains today one of the major European consumer electronics events, it does not punctuate the news of the smartphone sector. This year again, few brands are represented there, and even fewer have made announcements there, with the exception of the Chinese Honor, which demonstrates its interest in the European market.
Founded in 2013, Honor was, until 2020, only a sub-brand of Huawei. But the Shenzhen giant had to part with it, at the beginning of the decade, to find some financial comfort, when it was hit hard by American sanctions aimed at curbing its rise.
Since then, Honor has made a fresh start, trying to break away from its original image, that of a brand aimed at a young audience on a constrained budget. Like many other Chinese brands before it (Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, etc.), it now intends to forge a solid reputation beyond its domestic borders. In France, it already claims fourth place in the market.
Symbol of this ambition, the brand presented on Friday a high-end product, the Honor Magic V2, a folding phone, the price of which – which has not been communicated – should most likely exceed 1,500 euros. The brand, which had invited The world at its launch conference, also unveiled an astonishing “handbag phone” concept, which transforms the terminal into a fashion accessory.
10,000 engineers at Honor
The company says it has invested heavily in its research and development to create these new products. It has a team of 10,000 engineers. It can in any case boast of presenting a particularly thin and light folding phone.
Since Huawei paved the way, Chinese brands no longer hesitate to tackle the very high end, the only profitable one in a declining market, which suffers both from consumer over-equipment and inflation. . Phone shipments are at their lowest globally since 2014 and have been in near-continuous decline since 2017.
The situation is no better in Europe. In the first quarter, shipments suffered a 23% decline compared to the same period in 2022, reaching their lowest since the second quarter of 2012, according to the firm Counterpoint. Nevertheless, the average sale price of terminals reached a historic high in the first quarter of the year. A dynamic driven in particular by the rapid emergence of the folding telephone market. For Anthony Scarsella, director of research at IDC, who evokes a sales growth of more than 50% in this category, it is probably “the only positive point in 2023”.
You have 36.38% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.