Huawei launched spin off brand Honor as a means of better competing with emerging smartphone maker Xiaomi, the manufacturer has confirmed.
Addressing TrustedReviews at the company’s HQ in Shenzhen, China, Huawei revealed that one of the primary purposes of Honor was to stem the rise of its Chinese challenger.
“The Honor series is not the most high-end one. The Honor series, we merely sell them in China because we want to compete with a new Chinese device company called Xiaomi,” Julian Ling, one of Huawei’s Solutions Consultants told us.
He added: “Xiaomi is very special. I cannot say that their device is bad; it’s a very good device.
“What Xiaomi can do is develop faster. Just three years ago we didn’t look at Xiaomi as our competitor.
“Today, we really need to do something about the competition with Xiaomi, especially in the Chinese market.”
Looking at areas where Xiaomi has stolen a lead on Huawei, Ling stated: “Xiaomi have a very good system for the end users.
“They make the end users feel that they are the developer, they are the owners of their devices.”
While Xiaomi handsets are not yet widely available in UK markets, the Chinese manufacturer has risen to global prominence over the past 24 months with affordable, reasonably specced devices such as the Xiaomi Mi3 and the Xiaomi Mi4.
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Despite having been available in Huawei’s native China for some time, Honor handsets have only made it to British shores in recent months.
Most recently the Honor 6 Plus was introduced, with the 5.5-inch device pairing a 1080p, Full HD display with 8-megapixel cameras front and back and an Octa-core Kirin 925 chipset.
The flagship Honor handset, the spin off brand is targeting a more youthful, money conscious audience to Huawei’s leading handsets, such as the Ascend Mate 7 and Ascend P7.
According to Shao Yang, Huawei’s Chief Marketing Officer, this planned assault on Xiaomi though the targeting of a younger audience group is already paying off.
“Young people have fallen in love with Honor. Maybe not with Huawei, yet,” he said.