Honor’s big plans for South Africa

Former Huawei sub-brand Honor is relaunching as a fully-independent company in South Africa and plans to stake its claim on the local smartphone market.

Huawei founded Honor in 2013 to compete in the online retail market for mid-range smartphones among young shoppers.

The brand played a pivotal role in pulling Huawei to the #1 best-selling smartphone brand in the world, before the US ban on the Chinese tech giant cut it off from hardware and software made with US technology.

In November 2020, Huawei sold Honor to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology, a company majority-owned and controlled by the Shenzhen municipal government.

The US appears to have no issue with Honor’s links to the Chinese government, possibly due to the fact that it is not involved in network infrastructure like its former parent company.

Now that Honor has cut the apron strings, the brand is able to use Google Mobile Services on its devices and buy processors from firms like Qualcomm, which makes the highly popular Snapdragon chipsets.

Honor South Africa CEO, Kelvin Cao, told MyBroadband the company considered South Africa as one of its top 10 priority markets.

That is why it is setting up a dedicated local Honor presence instead of entering the market through a third-party distributor.

“We have a long-term investment plan in this market,” Cao said. “There is capacity and there are customers here, and I think they deserve better products and solutions. We are here to provide that.”

Cao said Honor used to be focused on the youth market, but was now aiming to be a more comprehensive brand — from budget to high-end.

“We have the same quality and same cameras, but a better experience,” he added.

The first Honor smartphones that will be available in South Africa following the relaunch are the high-end Honor 50 and mid-range Honor 50 Lite, which boast the same internal hardware as the Huawei Nova 9 and Huawei Nova 8i, respectively.

However, both come with full support for Google Mobile Services.

These will initially be on offer from mobile network operators including MTN and Telkom between late November and December 2021, and from Vodacom in early 2022.

Honor’s retail partners will include The Foschini Group and Mustek.

Cao said pricing was still being finalised, but customers can expect the Honor 50 Lite to start at around R6,999 on prepaid or R349 per month on contract, depending on the networks.

The company is taking a focused approach with its relaunch, opting to gradually familiarise customers with select products instead of flooding the market with too many options that could confuse consumers.

Honor will be stepping into a crowded battlefield of Android smartphone makers already in South Africa, including Chinese companies like Oppo and Xiaomi.

Cao said there were several factors that set Honor apart from its rivals.

The first is that Honor invested substantially more in research and development (R&D).

“Globally, Honor has four R&D centres. Approximately 50% of the new Honor team are working in that function.”

The company also has around 400 strict product standards against which its products are tested.

European electronics retail chain Darty previously published data that showed Honor and Huawei’s failure rates were the lowest among smartphone makers, besting Apple and Samsung.

In addition, Cao highlighted many of the people working at Honor South Africa previously worked for Huawei and would bring their experience from its prime time in South Africa over to Honor.

With a full presence in South Africa, Cao has promised superior customer service to rivals that work through distributors.

“We are not here to just sell products to our channel partners to sell to customers,”  Cao said. “We want to build 360-degree end-to-end solutions for our customers.”

Cao said Honor also has plans in the pipeline to launch its own branded stores in major cities in South Africa in 2022.

Besides smartphones, the company will be offering a range of smart devices.

Among the devices it sells elsewhere are smartwatches, earbuds, speakers, laptops, routers, chargers, and even scales.

Below are photos and specifications of the Honor 50 and Honor 50 Lite expected to launch in South Africa this month.

Honor 50

Now read: Smartphone battery beasts that will last through the worst load-shedding