An Full Exclusive Interview with George, CEO of HONOR

Post the launch of the HONOR 60 Series, The CEO of HONOR George Zhao arranged an exclusive interview with Media.

Note: The price value, performance mentioned in the answers only represent the Chinese Market

• Why is HONOR back to 66W? Is it for battery long life?

The HONOR 60 Series battery consumption has greatly improved its range with our pre-tested standby screen on time taking more than 9 hours.

Upgrading from 66W to higher charging is a loss of battery capacity. Taken together, the long-life duration of the HONOR 60 series is already sufficient for most consumers.

The principle of HONOR product design is to balance the best product, not the pursuit with gimmicks. From 100W to 66W, there will be no pressure from consumers I believe there is an answer.

• Why is HONOR 60's ID design not much different than HONOR 50? Is it intended to be the same type of design for two generations a year?

In terms of design, we hope that there will be some family-style design inheritance such as the logic of double rings with iterative evolution. You see from Apple’s designs, and not many consumers question it. I believe that the quad screen and the standard version of the hyperbolic screen have brought some design changes.

• This time the battery life performed well, where is the future growth direction in terms of Battery?

HONOR believes that battery life should be a comprehensive improvement. The digital series has always adhered to scientific aesthetics. In a thin and light body, large power + good heat dissipation is one direction. The combination of software and hardware in the future is to give full play to the energy efficiency ratio of smartphones which is another direction.

Through AI, it is very important to optimize the capabilities of each component so that every point of energy is not wasted. Optimized in multiple dimensions such as hardware, systems, applications. and the HONOR 60 series battery life improvement comes from these capabilities. Over time, in machine learning, it is believed that all applications can achieve a good energy efficiency ratio.

• What are the difficulties in the realization of Vlog technology? Will the future HONOR focus on the Vlog track?

People have various actions during shooting and how to accurately recognize them is very important. To improve the fault tolerance rate, misoperation is the key. A lot of AI learning for different people's habits is the main technical difficulty behind the scenes. Success rates can be further increased when a large number of users become involved.

Secondly, during the shooting process use of various templates and the participation of Vlog shooting talents together can optimize the Vlog function. So the overall effect will be very good. As shown in the development of products, more and more people will use video to record their lives, and demand will increase. This will be an important development direction for us.

• How did HONOR achieve its third market position in domestic mobile phones half a year ago?

Now HONOR has completely solved the problem of survival and basically solved the problem of supply chain and channel dealers. Our cooperation with upstream and downstream has entered a virtuous circle. After September and October, we didn't mention the market share anymore. We returned to all the interfaces for communicating with consumers to meet the needs of consumers.

In the end, it is products and services that win the market. We have reached a consensus internally that mobile phones are no longer a top game for HONOR. We chose to win innovative breakthroughs. This also means that we will serve consumers for a long time.

• Snapdragon 8 Gen1, MediaTek also announced Dimensity 9000 which means that competition in the high-end market will intensify. How does HONOR view this market? The market is still shrinking this year, and Apple is still strong. What is the focus of HONOR for next year? What abilities need to be strengthened?

For us, we are happy to see the results. The mobile phone industry is highly competitive and SoC manufacturers are constantly breaking through and innovating. Qualcomm and MediaTek are both glorious partners, and I am grateful for their support. HONOR's future development will also develop unique bottom-level innovations based on the capabilities of partners in the industry.

Nowadays, few friends in the industry have fully released the chip capabilities. For example, the HONOR 50 can be compared to the Snapdragon 888 in some scenarios. The future cooperation will definitely be deep. We will accumulate technologies and application scenarios for consumers, chips, ISPs, etc., and work with these manufacturers to advance together. I can say without the humility that we have the best optimization capabilities of Snapdragon 888 and 888+. With the same chip, HONOR will definitely give better performance. We will also consider using these two flagship chips in the future.

The ups and downs of the market are normal. There is no bad market, only bad responses. Apple has performed well and has a strong competitor, which should excite the industry and allow the market to form good competition and it is not easy to form excessive involution. HONOR will insist on doing its own thing and achieving the ultimate whether it is the market or consumer recognition, it will be as promised. In 2022, the future can be expected.

• HONOR sold about 14 million mobile phones in the third quarter. What is the proportion of different price segments? How about the sales of HONOR Magic 3 series phones, have they met expectations?

This year, we have faced the problem of a structural shortage of chips throughout the year. In the second half of the year, we mainly focused on models above 2,000 yuan, accounting for 60% to 70%.

It is the first time for HONOR Magic 3 to find 5000+, 6000+ and even 7999. We are very happy with the composition of core users, who come from non-HONOR user groups. The original high-end user group recognizes us very much. As the first time to reach this price range, our internal judges are still very satisfied. After all, we are the last manufacturer to get the Snapdragon 8 series chips.

• How is the strategy of two generations a year different from other families? What are the advantages of dealing with this market?

After two generations of product development, HONOR has such experience. Originally, the V series at the end of the year was a digital series before the middle of the year. This time, some of the design logic of the V series was placed on the HONOR 60. It has inherited the 50 and improved the comprehensive experience of the system. HONOR now has a positive and virtuous cycle in the entire R&D system and the speed of new products will accelerate in the future.

HONOR 50 is a phenomenal product, and HONOR 60 will still have no rivals in the market.

• Can the number of HONOR's offline stores be revealed? 

Now our offline channels have entered a good state. Different channels cooperate with each other, and the right people do the right things. At present, all the offline outlets of HONOR have exceeded 30,000. In the future, the construction of authorized stores will be accelerated. More than 2,000 newly built in October have begun to consciously control the growth rate and make the layout more reasonable. Offline sales accounted for more than 70%. In the next step, we hope to build a healthy retail system.

• Apple reached the top in October. Do you think that domestic mobile phones are still immature to take over the high-end market? What can we do to occupy this market?

The road Huawei has traveled has given many people experience: starting with innovation at the bottom, serving consumers with experience. This is the fundamental aspect. We can’t regard configuration as quality, we can’t just be marketing gimmicks and we can’t put high-end parts together as innovation. What’s even more test is the innovation based on existing technological capabilities and the experience that consumers feel with the service.

If you deviate from this fundamental and say that you can carve up Huawei's market, it is naive. The market will never accommodate this kind of behavior. With the rapid growth in competition with strong players, HONOR’s NPS is very high and HONOR Magic 3’s NPS is constantly improving every month.

Our principle is continuous improvement and optimization, even if the product has been on the market for a while, but we still retain a large team to maintain it. This means that we have a very big opportunity in the future.

• Why does HONOR 60 Pro adopt the costly four-curved screen solution? Will the HONOR Digital series keep two updates a year, and the V series will not be updated?

Four curved screens are used less in the industry because technological breakthroughs are very difficult. (George took a piece of paper and folded a death fold as an example) If this problem cannot be solved, it will become the ugliest piece of a four-screen phone. In the future, this four-curved design may be a feature of our flagship. We have a patent, and we hope that friends will follow up. In the future, we may adopt a more radical four-curved screen design.

The current considerations of the V series are currently under evaluation. Part of the V series is covered by the digital series. The standard version of the Magic series also covers the positioning of some of the V series. We will continue to consider it.

• How about the folding screen?

HONOR will definitely launch it, but too much information is inconvenient to reveal today. It can be said that it can surpass all the folding screen mobile phones on the market.

• HONOR's screen strategy is more radical. Will it further increase the screen configuration in the future? When will the system undergo major changes?

We have always paid close attention to screens. We also have internal laboratories to do research and development and conduct mutual technical verification with supplier partners. In the future, other product series will undoubtedly continue to make breakthroughs on screens, such as the extreme narrowness of the X30i released some time ago. The frame is innovated together with the supplier.

Now that the direction of hardware breakthroughs is very clear, there are still great gains from the operating system. For example, our memory expansion of 2GB is better than 5GB from other vendors. This will be our ability to continue to build and continue to support AI. Next, the advantages will continue to expand. In the high-end flagship, in the Chinese market, our goal is to exceed Apple's experience, we will continue to do so.

• Is there any information on the plans for HONOR’s listing and sub-brands? What about the market share goal?

Going public is not something that I pay special attention to. It is my job to do a good job in the company's operation and product experience, and it is not my consideration to go public.

Now our series is very complete, there is no plan for when the sub-brand will be launched in the future.

Share is a result, and other things that are done well will naturally come. The excessive target of share can easily lead to out-of-shape operations. It is more important to do well in each product.

• When will Snapdragon 8 Gen1 products be available?

This chip is good, and the product is also under development. We are not in a hurry to grab the first launch, but we must do our best to launch the product.