Wired
Without the word “Huawei” as a prefix, the glory has begun to accelerate on the road alone.
On June 16, 2021, Honor released its high-end mobile phone series “Honor 50”-this is the first model released by Honor since its true independence on March 31. It can be said to be a new beginning in the true sense of Honor.
More importantly, the Honor 50 series has been confirmed to be equipped with the Snapdragon 778G chip before the release, which actually shows that Honor and Huawei have been completely separated.
In fact, after leaving Huawei, Honor’s market share is gradually declining, with only 3% at its lowest point. From this perspective, the performance of the Honor 50 series will, to a certain extent, determine the market performance of the new Honor in the second half of the year.
The glory at this time urgently needs a self-proving product.
Three series, one sub-brand
“Glory’s market share reached 16.7% at its peak last year. After a difficult period, the lowest market share was only 3%, but it has returned to 9.5% at the end of May.”
Before entering the product release link, Zhao Ming shared the latest situation of Honor.
At the same time, Zhao Ming disclosed the development plan of Honor products for the first time-Honor brand will be divided into three series, namely Magic series, Digital series, X series, and Play series will become Honor online sub-brand-which means that before The flagship product line V series that Honor strives to build will become history.
It is not difficult to see that the “Glory” after independence is very much like the original Huawei in terms of product planning.
According to Zhao Ming, the Honor 50 series screens will support 1.07 billion color displays and a 120Hz screen refresh rate; among them, the Honor 50 is equipped with a 6.57-inch center-mounted perforated OLED dual-curved screen; the Honor 50 Pro is a 6.72-inch top left dig Hole hyperbolic screen.
In terms of camera modules, the Honor 50 is equipped with a 3200W front camera, and the rear is a 108 million pixel main camera + 800W ultra wide-angle + 200W macro + 200W depth of field, while the Honor 50 Pro has an additional 1200W front camera on the basis of the former. Video camera.
After the introduction of the basic functional configuration, Zhao Ming introduced the performance configuration of the Honor 50 series that has attracted much attention. The Honor 50 series first released the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G SoC. Compared with the previous generation, the CPU performance has increased by 45%, and the GPU performance has increased by 45%. , AI performance increased by 123%, and ISP throughput rate increased by 77%.
It is worth mentioning that at the press conference, Zhao Ming also revealed that Magic 3 will be equipped with a full blood version of the Snapdragon 888 chip.
In terms of price, Honor 50 offers three versions of 8+128GB/8+256GB/12+256GB, priced at 2,699 yuan, 2,999 yuan, and 3399 yuan, respectively. The Honor 50 Pro 8+256GB version is priced at 3699 yuan, and the 12+256GB version is priced at 3999 yuan.
In addition to the Honor 50/Pro, Zhao Ming also released the Honor 50 SE, equipped with Dimensity 900, and also supports Link Turbo, GPU Turbo X and other technologies. It provides two configurations of 8+128GB/8+256GB, and the prices are respectively 2399 yuan, 2699 yuan.
It is worth noting that Zhao Ming stated at the press conference that Honor 50 will be sold in 40+ countries around the world. However, according to Leifeng.com, it is still uncertain whether Honor can use Google Mobile Services (GMS); this is still a big problem to be solved for Honor who wants to enter the overseas market.
“Remarried” Qualcomm
Honor was split from Huawei in November 2020. It took 5 months to complete the integration until March 31 this year. During this period, Honor only launched the Honor V40 series and Honor Play 5 series, and then the Honor 50 series released today.
Compared with the Honor 50 series, the Honor V40 is more like a transitional product. No matter in terms of product configuration or market performance, it has failed to gain the upper hand in the market products during the same period. Zhao Ming also admitted in an interview that V40 shipments It’s not very big.
Obviously, Glory, which had just announced its independence at that time, was not yet fully prepared, and had not yet separated from the shadow of sanctions. The problem of chip supply constraints still existed, which also caused Glory to encounter a “dark time”.
“This month is our darkest time before dawn.” In an interview in April this year, Zhao Ming said frankly. “The inventory accumulated before September 17 is being consumed less and less, and new supplies are starting to climb. Now is the time for (shipments) to be relatively small,” Zhao Ming said.
According to Leifeng.com, during this period, the market share of Honor mobile phones has fallen to 3% (data as of April 2021).
For Honor after independence, the “dark cloud” of chip supply will not dissipate for a day, and it will be difficult for Honor phones to get out of the dilemma. With Honor V40’s “Leading Lessons”, the chip supply problem was solved first before the release of Honor 50.
At the Qualcomm Technology and Cooperation Summit on May 21, Zhao Ming, as the only guest in the field of smartphones, was the Qualcomm platform and announced that the Honor 50 series will be the world’s premiere equipped with the Snapdragon 778G mobile platform.
Not only that, according to Zhao Ming’s previous statement, chip suppliers including AMD, Intel, Micron, Samsung, Qualcomm, Microsoft, MTK, etc. will also resume cooperation with Honor in June.
According to Zhao Ming, the Snapdragon 778G chip platform this time, from the signing of the agreement between the two parties to the acquisition of chip-related materials, Honor R&D personnel spent 5 months to complete all aspects of debugging and integration.
In Zhao Ming’s view, the Honor 50’s research and development progress on the chip side is ahead of other manufacturers, and the early supply of subsequent chips will have a huge advantage. According to Tencent’s “First Line” report, the initial stock of Honor 50 has exceeded one million units.
An insider of a mobile phone manufacturer told Leifeng.com that the product stock volume is a pre-judgment after the mobile phone manufacturer has evaluated the shipment volume of each product in the past, and it is a reflection of the mobile phone manufacturer’s confidence in their products.
Although Honor has not announced the shipment data of the previous generation of products, from the stock volume data, the last stock volume reached the million level is Xiaomi 11.
Completely out of “Huawei”
The external chip supply chain problem has been gradually solved. Internally, after Honor becomes independent, it is urgent to sort out or rebuild the management system, channel operation, and team formation necessary for an independent company; for “New Honor”, this is Honor. Face the bullet of the future.
Zhao Ming once said frankly in an interview that “there is a short period of confusion after complete independence”. After being freed from the protection of the “big tree” of Huawei, Glory has to face the wind and rain alone while gaining freedom.
At present, Glory has separated all aspects of operation mechanism, organization, various resources, including offices, etc. that an independent company should have from a system.
In addition, the establishment of the IT system and the administrative system, plus all the contents of the market system, all contracts with suppliers, channel contracts, including the retail system contract, Glory has been re-constructed after independence.
Leifeng.com learned that at the time when Honor and Huawei “divided”, more than 30 channel vendors had become shareholders of Honor and were deeply bound with Honor. Just this month, Ai Shide announced that it spent 660 million yuan to participate in the joint acquisition of Glory, becoming the strategic investor with the largest shareholding ratio among channel vendors.
With the support of the “reserve force”, Honor is also simultaneously launching its offline stores under the “omni-channel” planning layout. According to Zhao Ming, there are currently thousands of stores nationwide under construction at the same time.
In addition, in terms of team formation, Leifeng.com learned that Honor currently has more than 8,000 employees, most of which are separated from Huawei’s system, covering R&D, sales, marketing, procurement, manufacturing, service, finance and other aspects. Complete system from end to end.
Among them, R&D personnel accounted for half. The personnel from the four R&D bases of the original Huawei Terminal Beijing and Xi’an were integrated into the glory, including imaging, chip, software R&D, and architecture design teams.
It is understood that the shortest development cycle of Honor is only six to seven months. The strategy is divided into several rows. One generation is in delivery, one is in development, and one is in design and pre-research. “The technical team started to reserve content early on, such as the underlying chips, images, software, hardware, charging, etc.” Fang Fei, president of the Honor product line, said in an interview.
In addition, Fang Fei also revealed that some members of the R&D team had participated in the incubation of Huawei’s earliest chips and had a good understanding of the underlying chips. The Qualcomm 778G on the Honor 50 was only used in the product after debugging and integration. .
Relevant persons in the industry chain introduced to Leifeng.com that under normal circumstances, mobile phone manufacturers will take about one month to complete the pre-research after obtaining the chip. After the pre-research is qualified, it will be put into use, and mass production project development will be initiated, and the system will be designed, developed, and tested. As well as internal trials, it will be launched to the market in about two or three months.
According to Zhao Ming’s introduction at the Honor 50 conference, the Qualcomm Snapdragon platform is also adapted to Honor’s Link Turbo, GPU Turbo X and other technologies for the first time.
However, the Honor 50 is not the product with the most intense R&D team effort. Judging from the statements made by Zhao Ming and Fang Fei in previous interviews, the Honor high-end flagship Magic series, which will be released within the year, is the “highlight” of convergence technology research and development.
Honor to be “high-end”
In Zhao Ming’s public strategic plan on March 31, the digital series including Honor 50 and the Magic series will serve as Honor’s high-end and flagship products. In Zhao Ming’s words, the latter will have a hardware design and experience beyond the Mate and P series.
Although the new Magic series are still in the planning stage, it is not difficult to see that the ambitions of glory after independence are showing, and the target is the “high-end territory” that Huawei cannot sustain.
“In terms of our strategic intent, Honor is preparing for the mid-year high-end comprehensive rise in all aspects.” In April this year, Zhao Ming said in an interview.
In fact, in addition to Honor, domestic mobile phone manufacturers, including Xiaomi OV, are also competing for this gap in the market. When Honor officially announced its independence, it was already undercurrents-Xiaomi launched Xiaomi 11 and Xiaomi one after another. 11 Pro, Xiaomi 11 Ultra; vivo released vivoX60 pro+; OPPO relied on FindX3 Pro to enter…
What Glory wants to enter is actually an “area” surrounded by beasts. The giants in the arena have planted flags one after another. Glory not only has to open the door to the arena, but also compete in it.
In the 2021 Q1 global smartphone shipment data provided by IDC and Canalys, Huawei has fallen out of the top five and is classified as “Others”. In contrast, Xiaomi OV has seen its market share rise.
According to the 2021 product roadmap published by Honor, the second half of the year is an important time for Honor to attack the high-end; Honor 50 can be said to be the beginning of its high-end layout.
Compared with the Xiaomi Mi 11 series, which is priced up to 7,000 yuan, and the blue-green factory has reached the price range of 6,000, the high-end Honor 50 series is priced at 3,999 yuan, which is not so “high-end”.
However, the price level is not a standard that defines whether a mobile phone is high-end, but merely a manifestation of high-end.
Wu Hao, CEO of Juke 200 (a SaaS platform for the communications retail chain industry), told Leifeng.com (public account: Leifeng.com) that in the minds of consumers, high-end mobile phones do not only mean higher prices; whether mobile phones can stand high-end, It is determined by the people who buy or use it. Only a mobile phone that is recognized by the high consumer group can be considered a high-end.
Previously, the Honor mobile phone under the Huawei system has always been defined as a low-end Internet brand, and the cost-effectiveness is the label affixed to it. Nowadays, the new glory of independence from the Huawei system is only about half a year. It may not be so easy to quickly take off this coat.
On the other hand, Xiaomi, which is also an Internet mobile phone brand, has also worked hard on its way to the high-end. It first formed a strategic separation with Redmi, and then slowly opened the high-end door through the “stepping bricks” such as Xiaomi 10 series and Xiaomi 11 series.
Brand recognition is not about “shouting slogans and advertising” to change the minds of users. More importantly, it lies in the hard power of the product, that is, the product’s performance configuration, the coordination of software and hardware ecology, and a full range of product experience, which all require Enough technical support and ecological cooperation and coordination.
Compared with other mobile phone brands, the glory of some of Huawei’s technical teams obviously has certain technical advantages, but it is probably too early to use it as a winning weapon to compete with other mobile phone brands.
Some people in Huawei have said that Huawei’s high-end technology does not have much overlap with Honor. After the Honor team is split, it will not have much impact on Huawei’s R&D system, and Honor will not take away Huawei’s core. technology.
It is not difficult to imagine that Honor will still need some time to cultivate its core technology-compared with other mobile phone manufacturers with fixed R&D teams, they have the first-mover advantage.
Will the next “Huawei” be “Glory”?
For Honor, the horn to hit the high-end has been sounded. With the Honor 50, the first shot has been fired. According to Honor’s plan, there will be two gunshots this year.
Zhao Ming did not hide his long-term goals in the future. “The goal of New Glory is actually very clear, that is, to be the number one in the Chinese market.” Zhao Ming said in an interview. And just last year, Huawei has been firmly ranked first in the Chinese market.
However, Zhao Ming did not clarify the constant standard of “first”. But for the current glory, which has a market share of only about 9.5%, it is still a little far away to realize the vision of “becoming the number one”.
In the domestic market, the mobile phone market vacated by Huawei has been divided up by other domestic mobile phone manufacturers. The glory of being late is not enough to catch up. To become the number one, it is more important to surpass.
In reality, it is not just the Honor family running on the track. There is not much time left for Honor to catch up before the distance gets wider and wider.
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