© Original content by Shenxiang · Author | Liu Yalan

The high-pitched roar of the engine tears through the air. In the fraction of a second when Zhang Xue Motorcycle leans into an extreme corner at a near-ground angle, sparks flying everywhere, a telephoto lens captures an incredibly sharp image: on the motorcycle's chassis, the clear letters—HONOR—are revealed.

This is probably the most memorable instance of "soft propaganda" in recent times across the tech, digital, sports, and branding circles. There are no overwhelming giant billboards, no Deliberately posing for photos (deliberately staged) commercial gimmicks. At the thrilling moment of extreme cornering, the rider's courage, the limits of technology, and the brand symbol come together in a highly dynamic on-screen presence.

This aligns perfectly with the brand intuition HONOR has given over the past year—attempting to break free from the lengthy and steady brand narrative of a major manufacturer in the past, and instead presenting a highly agile "surprise attack" state: HONOR's robot "Lightning" surpassed human records to win a half-marathon and signed marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge; it Advance deposit (anticipated) key stars from the South African and Mexican national teams, turning the first World Cup match into a "HONOR Derby"; just 20 minutes after its launch, the Magic V6 in Chitu Red sold out across all e-commerce platforms; in collaboration with Xiao Zhan, the HONOR 600 became the "lucky star" for young people; overseas markets have shown strong growth momentum, with increased efforts in the mid-to-high-end segment...

With sudden changes in style and a series of bold moves, these facets compel us to reunderstand HONOR and the transformations of the new HONOR after surviving challenges and emerging from Huawei's shadow.

Zhang Xue's "HONOR Moment" and

HONOR's "Zhang Xue Journey"

To understand HONOR's changes, its recent collaboration with Zhang Xue is worth exploring in depth—it is not just a highly recognizable brand case but also a window into deconstructing the underlying values of HONOR and Zhang Xue.

On March 28, Zhang Xue Motorcycle won the WSBK (World Superbike Championship) Portugal round with a near 4-second lead, becoming the first Chinese manufacturer to top an international middle-to-large displacement motorcycle event, a position previously dominated by Europe and Japan.

From obscurity to overnight victory, Zhang Xue became famous. Stories of his apprenticeship as a mechanic, chasing cars in the rain, and blindly assembling engines were "unearthed," with media lining up for interviews, investors pursuing him overnight, and various brands flocking to him... On April 8, HONOR officially announced its role as the chief strategic partner of Zhang Xue Motorcycle at WSBK, once again "setting off a thousand waves."

Zhang Xue became famous in one battle, with many options available, including super major manufacturers with greater financial strength. Why, among many brands, did he choose HONOR? On the other side, although Zhang Xue is now highly popular, motorcycle racing is not a mainstream sport, and this popularity could fade quickly after the event ends. Why is HONOR, which always emphasizes efficiency, so confident in Zhang Xue?

This is no longer just a matter of "money."

Dissecting the path to this collaboration, outsiders can clearly see a decision-making efficiency rare among major manufacturers. HONOR does not have the most money or even the greatest fame, but it acts the fastest and makes decisions extremely decisively. "HONOR moves fast," Zhang Xue responded when asked about his choice: "HONOR is straightforward and efficient, and I like this kind of high-efficiency cooperation."

Many people would simply attribute this speed to execution. However, what deserves more attention is why HONOR can be fast. Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" divides human decision-making into two systems: "System 1," which relies on experience and intuition for rapid judgment, and "System 2," which forms decisions through repeated argumentation, analysis, and calculation. For mature companies, System 2 often dominates. When a cooperation opportunity arises, it requires Layer by layer reporting (layer-by-layer reporting), risk assessment, legal review, and ROI calculation, ultimately completing the decision-making process after a lengthy process (process). This mechanism is not problematic, but it naturally tends to seek certainty.

And Zhang Xue is precisely a highly uncertain choice. How long will the post-victory popularity last? Is motorcycle racing popular enough? How will the rider's personal IP develop in the future? These questions are difficult to answer definitively. From the perspective of System 2, this is not an easy project to approve. But HONOR ultimately chose to move forward quickly. Because truly high-level brand decision-making does not mean abandoning System 2 but gradually internalizing the long-accumulated experience of System 2 into System 1.

From the later results, while others were still hesitating and calculating, HONOR was able to judge based on its long-formed brand instinct: this is an opportunity that must be seized.

Beyond speed, the highly similar "journeys" of HONOR and Zhang Xue are probably the fundamental reason for their instant chemistry.

In terms of experience, both Zhang Xue leaving Kaiyue Motorcycle and HONOR leaving Huawei represented starting over and rebuilding from scratch. Their ability to stage a comeback relied on their persistence in technology—Zhang Xue's obsessive insistence finally led to the self-developed inline three-cylinder engine; similarly, after independence, HONOR faced dangers but repeatedly rose from adversity, persisting in technological self-reliance and delving into foundational technologies. Its self-developed Qinghai Lake blade battery compressed battery electrode thickness to the extreme, achieving technological breakthroughs in capacity, silicon content, thickness, and energy density, breaking industry records.

HONOR CEO Li Jian introduced at the Magic V6 launch event that

the Qinghai Lake blade battery technology won the

GLOMO "Best Breakthrough Innovation Award," known as the "Oscar" of the tech circle.

Facing challenges in their respective fields, both companies chose to "persevere" in technology, becoming resilient symbols of Chinese intellectual manufacturing. Therefore, whether Zhang Xue Motorcycle continues to win in future races becomes less important. Popularity may rise and fall, but passion for the cause is an unquenchable flame, as HONOR Global CMO Guan Haitao said: "Winning is a result, losing is a story—either way, it's HONOR, it's Chinese HONOR."

In terms of temperament, both the motorcycle and smartphone sectors are red oceans with "mountains" blocking the way. As "latecomers," Zhang Xue and HONOR both possess a daredevil "youthful spirit"—respecting and surpassing the strong (the strong), looking only ahead regardless of the past. Zhang Xue does not lack a commercial contract; what he lacks is a spiritual ally willing to accompany him in "defying conventions and daring to be different."

It is these premises of mutual admiration that have led to the win-win effect we see now. Just like the "divine reveal" on the motorcycle's chassis, on Zhang Xue Motorcycle, the HONOR logo is not the largest but the most "understanding."

Netizens joke about HONOR and Zhang Xue's "sharp collaboration"

Source: Xiaohongshu

For Zhang Xue Motorcycle, HONOR provides flagship smartphones, smart wearables, and other full-scenario devices for event data collection, imaging recording, and communication support. In the future, there may be even deeper technical collaborations to further optimize racing performance. Meanwhile, HONOR's user base of over 100 million and its global influence also benefit motorcycle racing popularization and enhance brand recognition for Zhang Xue Motorcycle.

Starting May 1, Zhang Xue Motorcycle will be featured in multiple HONOR experience stores, showcasing hardcore technological strength alongside the humanoid robot HONOR Lightning and HONOR Vitality Buddy, giving ordinary passersby a chance to experience the true charm of motorcycles up close.

Zhang Xue Motorcycle and HONOR robot Vitality Buddy

trigger "crowds" in stores

For HONOR, the collaboration with Zhang Xue is a true "dare to be different."

In traditional brand collaborations, tech manufacturers often pursue safety, controllability, traffic, and aesthetics when selecting partners, but the cost is that brands increasingly become clichéd.

Zhang Xue is clearly not a perfect assembly-line idol; he comes from a grassroots background, has a bold personality, and dares to speak his mind. In today's world, where everyone is fatigued by fake personas, this unfiltered authenticity establishes the rarest emotional connection between the brand and the public. The public sees in Zhang Xue the unyielding, flawed yet genuinely authentic version of themselves. HONOR's courage to accept and embrace this "authenticity" not only demonstrates great brand inclusivity but also conveys a brand attitude of being unpretentious and down-to-earth to the market.

Earlier, when Zhang Xue's shattered-screen phone was retired and replaced with a HONOR device, he casually remarked as an ordinary user, "It's very light, and the experience is good," without contrived wording or forced endorsements. This natural comment quickly transferred goodwill to the HONOR brand.

In fact, HONOR does not lack external collaborations; what it lacks is a symbol that can externalize its brand core—not a perfect paragon but a carrier (carrier) with depth, stories, and the ability to embody the HONOR spirit.

Zhang Xue taking a selfie with friends using Magic V6 in daily life

How hard is it to "be yourself"?

Clearly, the most resonant aspect between Zhang Xue and HONOR is being true to themselves and daring to be different. This is easier said than done.

HONOR's first entrepreneurial journey is already well-known. In 2020, Huawei was forced to sell HONOR, which then "marched at a fast pace" to survive and achieve results, topping China's smartphone market share in Q2 2023 and becoming the "Huawei alternative" in many people's minds.

However, the dividends of that time became a "bottleneck" now. Since Huawei's smartphone business made a "comeback" in the second half of 2023, HONOR's market performance has been affected and declined.

Worse still, under Huawei's shadow, the issues HONOR had masked by sales volume were exposed—lacking both independence and distinctiveness, with products, channels, and marketing highly homogenized with Huawei's.

Since independence, HONOR has accumulated leading self-developed breakthroughs like the Qinghai Lake battery, Oasis Eye Protection, and Shield Tunnel Steel Hinge, but amid the vast market noise, the public either misinterpreted these technological innovations as "bloodline dividends" or lacked awareness of HONOR's technical strength.

If independence from Huawei was HONOR's "first entrepreneurial journey," solving physical survival issues, then finding itself and bravely "being itself" is HONOR's "second entrepreneurial journey," addressing soul independence. Facing fierce industry competition and fluctuating market share, HONOR needs clearer self-determination and the brand courage to move from "following" to "leading."

This makes it easy to understand HONOR CEO Li Jian's first domestic press conference appearance, where he explained the brand's core trilogy: returning to authenticity, unleashing potential, and surpassing oneself. These three words are not about others but reflections of the self. All questions are condensed into the simplest one: returning to the most fundamental products and users—why is HONOR unique?

From a product perspective, HONOR's Magic series, Digital series, WIN series, and X series have formed certain independent consumer mindsets, constituting a product framework covering foldable screens, high-end flagships, mass-market hits, and vertical hits.

According to the latest IDC data, in Q1 2026, HONOR's domestic foldable smartphone market share surged from last year's 9.1% to 21%, becoming the only brand to double its growth and steadily ranking in the top two. The HONOR Magic V6, launched in mid-March, became the core driver of sales growth, receiving both acclaim and popularity.

Technologically, HONOR's well-known strengths lie mainly in battery capacity and endurance, screen technology, and performance and communication tuning. However, in the less prominent imaging segment, HONOR is also putting in effort, collaborating with ARRI Imaging and a Japanese senior imaging expert team to refine the audiovisual experience, which is expected to become a new highlight.

This is also HONOR's somewhat awkward challenge: HONOR phones perform relatively balanced across all segments with good system experience, but consumers often have preconceived biases, such as associating video with Apple, imaging with Huawei, and cost-effectiveness with Xiaomi. HONOR's system capabilities lack a distinct label. How to translate laboratory technological advantages into user-perceptible and -transmissible content is a cognitive barrier HONOR must break through.

From a consumer profile perspective, HONOR and Huawei's brand styles have already diverged. Young people have always been HONOR's stronghold, and their presence in the 4000+ yuan smartphone market has been steadily increasing in recent years. Focusing on the younger generation is an inevitable choice for HONOR's breakthrough.

The urgency for HONOR to "be itself" has also increased—young people's consumption decisions are increasingly colored by value projections. They are unwilling to be part of a standard answer or defined as a replica of a certain group. Young people will not like you because you are another who; they will only recognize you for who you are.

From technology to brand,

how does HONOR rebuild its memory points?

The challenges HONOR faces today are essentially not technological but cognitive. It needs to retell its strengths in ways that interest and resonate with consumers.

Over the past six months, people have seen HONOR increasingly frequently find differentiated characteristics and transform abstract parameters into concrete scenarios.

For example, using visual methods like drilling the screen with a power drill, doing pull-ups for weight-bearing tests, and high-altitude zip-line challenges to showcase the "toughness" of the Magic V6; or for the WIN series, focusing on "10,000mAh ultra-long endurance" to express competitive advantages, clearly explaining the "ultra-long endurance" highlight (highlights) that gamers care about most.

In today's era, parameters do not automatically translate into brand equity; only technology perceived by users is truly effective.

Meanwhile, HONOR is also redefining its understanding of young users. In the past, when many brands talked about youthfulness, it was still a one-way output from the brand to young people. However, HONOR is increasingly inclined to let young people become part of the brand.

From the talk-show-style product launch by a post-95 product manager to copywriting created by Gen Z; from cross-border collaborations like the MOLLY limited edition to the 'Star Ambassador Program' that allows more young product managers to compete for positions and even lead R&D and design... Whether in product development or marketing, HONOR is trying to transform the language of young people into its own brand language.

Of course, the emergence of these creative ideas, product transformations, and the 'dare to be different' brand ethos would not be possible without HONOR's agile internal decision-making mechanism. As long as it is within the brand's threshold, someone dares to make decisions and take responsibility, allowing young talent to step into the spotlight. We believe this is what sets HONOR apart from other major companies.

Beyond these existing 'optimizations,' HONOR has a unique opportunity to leapfrog the competition—AI, transitioning from a mere smartphone manufacturer to an AI ecosystem player.

In the past, the competitive logic of the smartphone industry was relatively simple: comparing chips, imaging capabilities, and battery life. However, with the advent of the AI era, smartphones are evolving from standalone devices into intelligent ecosystem gateways.

HONOR can be said to have an early advantage. A decade ago, the Magic smartphone was already exploring the integration of AI with intelligent devices. Today, HONOR has accumulated over 2,100 AI patents and taken a leading position in deploying on-device large models. On the operating system front, HONOR released MagicOS, a native, self-evolving AI intelligent agent operating system. On the AI Agent product front, HONOR introduced YOYO, its core intelligent agent. At MWC 2025, HONOR's $10 billion 'Alpha Strategy' officially made AI a clear and open card on the table.

Although 'AI' has now become a buzzword that anyone can latch onto, HONOR's AI has developed distinct characteristics—combining intelligence (IQ) with a sense of vitality (EQ): On mainstream smartphones, AI has transformed from a toy into a productivity tool, enabling seamless multi-app transitions and complex task completion with a single command through MagicOS's system-level orchestration and YOYO's perceptual capabilities. On HONOR's unique Robot Phone, AI is even given a 'body,' adapting its posture to environmental changes and scenarios, presenting a lifelike multimodal interaction capability that breaks through traditional screen-based interaction boundaries.

Correspondingly, HONOR is going all-in on the 'robotics' front. HONOR Lightning went from project inception to winning the Beijing Yizhuang Half Marathon in just seven months; HONOR Vitality Buddy has preemptively positioned itself in the consumer robotics market. Behind this lies HONOR's years of accumulated technology stack in software, hardware, and algorithms in the consumer electronics sector, perfectly integrating its 'root technology' capabilities and smart manufacturing prowess into the robotics field, opening a new chapter in the robotics industry: robots are moving from mere technological showcases in labs to truly productized system engineering.

The significance of these product breakthroughs and technological leadership is not just about expanding business boundaries; more importantly, they provide HONOR with a new brand coordinate system—when consumers talk about HONOR in the future, they will think of AI, Robot Phone, embodied intelligence, and truly cutting-edge technology. This is precisely the best opportunity for HONOR to break free from historical path dependencies and re-establish its brand uniqueness.

The Enduring Resonance of Brand Core

Looking back at HONOR's recent various moves, you'll notice that Zhang Xue Motorcycles, Savi, the World Cup, AI, robotics... seem like disparate actions, but they all point to the same goal: making it increasingly clear who HONOR is.

Zhang Xue challenges the long-dominated high-performance motorcycle landscape led by Europe and Japan; Savi pushes the limits of human endurance sports; the Mexican and South African national football teams, while not traditional powerhouses, represent emerging forces challenging the old order; the robot 'Lightning' running on the half-marathon track breaks through technological boundaries; while HONOR's bet on AI and the creation of Robot Phone represent proactive challenges to the next generation of human-computer interaction paradigms and industrial norms after the smartphone industry entered inventory competition.

They have different identities but share the same spiritual essence—latecomers, challengers, and breakthrough makers. This is precisely a microcosm of HONOR's journey. Having walked through valleys, it better understands the challenges faced by challengers; having experienced identity reconstruction, it cherishes the courage to be itself even more.

This logic is not just a localized experiment in the Chinese market but has been validated globally.

In the first quarter of 2026, HONOR's overseas markets continued their strong growth momentum, achieving breakthroughs in core markets such as the Middle East, South Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Among them, shipments in the Middle East market increased by 73% year-on-year, with market ranking rising to second place; the market share in the $300-$500 price segment increased to 24%, further enhancing competitiveness in the mid-to-high-end market.

According to HONOR's official data, the $1000 price segment HONOR 600 series maintained double-digit growth in multiple overseas markets, while the $1999 foldable flagship HONOR Magic V6 was one after another (shùlù, meaning 'successively') launched overseas, challenging the perception of foldable screen leadership. In the Malaysian market, one out of every three foldable screens is a HONOR device.

Overseas consumers do not discuss whether HONOR is a substitute for someone else; they simply judge whether the new HONOR is worth choosing based on technology, products, and brand. Behind these numbers reflects not just sales growth but a change in HONOR's brand perception—consumers are starting to choose HONOR because of HONOR itself, no longer needing other reference points to understand the brand.

Looking back at that leaning moment—the HONOR logo did not appear in the most prominent position, yet it was remembered by countless people. This may be the truest portrayal of HONOR today. It may not have the loudest voice in the industry, nor may it possess the most abundant resources, but it is increasingly telling the market in a distinct way who it is.

Times are changing, consumers are changing, the industry is changing, and HONOR is changing too.

In an era of highly disperse attention and unprecedented importance of emotional value, parameters will be forgotten, configurations will be iterated, and market rankings will constantly shift. But once a brand spirit is formed, it becomes the most indelible imprint in consumers' minds.