Honor releases Magic 3 series flagship phone, the first Snapdragon platform product to support digital RMB

Honor releases Magic 3 series flagship phone, with the highest price of 7999 yuan

On the evening of August 12, the new Honor's first high-end flagship mobile phone, the Magic 3 series, was officially released. It is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus chip. The Honor Magic 3 is priced from 4,599 yuan, the Honor Magic 3 Pro is priced from 5,999 yuan, and the Honor Magic 3 Ultimate Edition is priced at 7,999 yuan. It will be officially launched on August 20.

Honor CEO Zhao Ming announced at the press conference that Honor Magic 3 is the first Snapdragon platform smartphone to support digital RMB.

Qualcomm President and CEO Amon attended the Magic 3 series launch conference online. Amon said Qualcomm looks forward to continued cooperation with Honor.

Honor CEO Zhao Ming said that in the future, the Magic series will be Honor's annually updated product. Honor's future development concept is to create products that are comparable to and surpass Apple.

On the Weibo platform, the live broadcast of the press conference provided by the "Honor Mobile" account was played more than 46.8 million times.

The first high-end mobile phone Magic3 is officially released

On the evening of August 12, Honor Magic 3 series flagship phones were officially released. The front of the new Honor Magic 3 series, the first high-end flagship phone, uses an 89° ultra-curved screen, equipped with a 6.76-inch flexible OLED screen, and supports a 120Hz screen refresh rate. The Honor Magic 3 series is available in four colors: bright black, glazed white, morning gold, and dawn blue.

In terms of chips, the Honor Magic 3 series is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus (upgraded version) 5G SoC. Honor CEO Zhao Ming said that Honor Magic 3 is the first smartphone on the Snapdragon platform to support the digital RMB "hard wallet", providing financial payment-level security protection.

In the domestic market, Zhao Ming said that Honor 50 ranked first in the 2,000-4,000 yuan price segment in July, and its weekly market share returned to 14.6%. In the future, the Magic series will be Honor's annually updated product.

Honor CEO Zhao Ming

When explaining the performance of mobile phones such as gaming and taking photos, Zhao Ming said that Honor Magic 3 Pro is better than Apple iPhone 12 Pro. Zhao Ming said that Honor's future development concept is to create products that are comparable to and surpass Apple.

Market research firm Counterpoint Research believes that Honor's current performance can be largely attributed to its long-term accumulated brand potential and R&D strength. The Honor brand is still popular among Chinese consumers, and has a R&D team of more than 4,000 people who migrated from Huawei, which helped Honor consolidate its "technically strong" brand image.

Sprint to the high-end mobile phone market

On August 6, market research firm Counterpoint Research released a report saying that, like OPPO, vivo, and Xiaomi, Honor is also actively exploring the high-end mobile phone market and expanding its development space. It is expected that in the market segments of RMB 2,000-4,000 (US$300-600) and above, market share competition will be more intense, and the overall competition landscape will be reshuffled in the second half of 2021.

Pacific Securities believes that the new Honor has solved the chip problem and regained market share with the help of the market reputation accumulated in the past few years. According to Counterpoint Research data, Honor's share of the Chinese market rebounded from 5.1% in January to 8.4% in June. Although Honor's sales in June were only about half of its 4.55 million units in August last year, the current growth momentum is strong. Month-on-month, Honor's sales in May and June increased by 39% and 27% respectively. Therefore, from the perspective of both market share and sales, Honor's smartphone sales have bottomed out.

Honor's monthly sales and market share in the domestic market

On August 6, Canalys released a report stating that based on Canalys' weekly data for July, OPPO, vivo and Honor currently occupy the top three in the mid-price segment, and the combined market share of the three manufacturers has exceeded 70%. With the momentum of Honor's 50 series of mobile phones, its current share has approached 14%, and is still on an upward trend. All of this is enough to show the fierce competition in the mid-range market.

Canalys said that the Honor 50 series has gradually demonstrated strong market competitiveness and has entered the forefront in the third week of its release, especially in the price range of 2,500 yuan to 4,000 yuan that it focuses on. Honor 50 has achieved the first place in sales of models in online channels. It is also because of the promotion of Honor 50 that the Honor brand has been leading all other brands in the price range of 2,500 yuan to 4,000 yuan in the online market for two consecutive weeks, and its share once reached 17.9%. This is not easy in the online market which is more picky about product cost performance. At present, efficient R&D capabilities and product innovation have become Honor's most valuable assets.

However, the Canalys report states that Apple has an absolute advantage in the market above 5,000 yuan, and Huawei's high-end flagship market share, which had previously achieved remarkable results, has gradually declined. Domestic Android manufacturers will continue to invest in high-end products in the second half of the year, and the competition in the high-end market will be more intense in the second half of the year. Counterpoint Research believes that with its outstanding brand advantages, accumulated R&D capabilities and distribution advantages, the Honor Magic 3 series may further intensify competition in China's high-end mobile phone market.