Smartphone maker Honor Device Co has become the third-largest Chinese smartphone brand in the third quarter. The Shenzhen-based company unveiled its latest smartphone Honor 60 series last week. Honor plans to expand its off-line sales network. CEO Zhao Ming said the company’s brick-and-mortar retail system is on a fast-track development, and the total number of its retail stores, authorized experience stores and authorized sales counters now exceed 30,000. “We will further expand our off-line presence. Since October, the number of Honor’s authorized experience stores has exceeded 2,000, and the number is still growing rapidly,” Zhao said. International Data Corp (IDC) said that in the third quarter Honor shipped 14 million smartphones in China, a jump of 31.7% year-on-year. The robust performance helped it to gain a domestic market share of 17.3%, which means the company has returned to its previous high, and it only trailed Vivo and Oppo in the third quarter.
Tarun Pathak, Research Director of Counterpoint, said: “After being spun off from Huawei, Honor was able to restore ties with component suppliers. Since then, leveraging its strong research and development capabilities, Honor has launched new products and has been on a rapid recovery path in China.” Pathak said the Honor 50 series has been an instant success in the midrange segment. Honor is also targeting the premium segment with its Magic series, thus expanding its portfolio across price segments. “There was also pent-up demand from loyal Huawei and Honor consumers who held onto their devices and did not switch to other brands. Its strong relationship with distributors also helped the company relaunch products on a large scale,” Pathak said.
But it is worth noting that in October, Apple’s sales of iPhones grew 46% month-on-month in China, making it the largest smartphone brand in the Chinese market for the first time since December 2015. Pathak said that the top position in China “has been changing hands” since the decline of Huawei Technologies Co. Apple’s rise was driven by the success of the iPhone 13 series, which was launched at a cheaper price than the iPhone 12 series in China. In response to Apple’s reemergence as the largest smartphone brand in the Chinese market, Zhao from Honor said it is exciting for the industry to have a strong competitor, which will promote healthy competition. He added that the company will invest heavily in R&D to expand its presence in the premium segment, the China Daily reports.
