"How many times, facing cold stares and ridicule, I never gave up, the ideal in my heart..."

On the evening of October 30, the passionate voice of "Boundless Sky" by Wong Ka Kui, a former member of Beyond, echoed through the air at the launch event for Honor's new AI flagship Magic7 series.

As the lyrics say, in the four years since its independence, Honor has faced no shortage of "cold stares and ridicule," but it has delivered an improbable answer: in the early days of independence, its market share plummeted to a low of 3%, marking a "darkest hour," before rebounding in a "smiling curve" and securing the top domestic market share for multiple quarters.

From being underdog to standing at the center of the stage, Honor has told a thrilling story of a remarkable comeback.

Standing at the four-year milestone of its independence, we see in Honor a mindset focused on building foundational capabilities and a vision for breaking through bottlenecks and surpassing oneself. This is a valuable spirit of "youth and freedom," as well as a brand ethos that refuses to be defined, fears no challenges, and constantly strives for self-transcendence and evolution. In one word, it's GO BEYOND.

As Honor CEO Zhao Ming said: Honor has always used innovation to bring the best products and experiences to consumers, and now aims to become even better. "We hope to constantly break our own limitations and boundaries."

Honor is on its way to becoming a global iconic tech brand, in its own way.

01

Overcome Adversity and Silence Doubts

Looking back at Honor's four years of independent development, it has truly played the role of the "protagonist."

In classic stories, before the protagonist achieves great martial prowess, they often fall to their lowest point, enduring cold stares and ridicule, but then persevere and gradually carve out their own path of growth, ultimately becoming invincible.

Honor's development path has also followed such a comeback curve.

Four years ago, after independence, Honor went from being an online powerhouse to the "weakest" mobile phone manufacturer overnight, with its market share plummeting from 16.7% to 3%.

At the time, almost no one was optimistic about Honor, believing that without Huawei's protection, it would struggle to rise. The situation was indeed dire, with internal turmoil, supply chain disruptions, and inadequate channel supply—major hurdles for any manufacturer.

But four years have passed in the blink of an eye, and Honor has shattered external doubts with tangible results, achieving a series of seemingly impossible feats.

When traditional OS innovation was lacking, Honor invested in platform-level AI to create MagicOS 9.0, an operating system for the future AI era. At the same time, Honor actively promoted the development of the AI mobile phone industry, leading the formulation of industry standards and norms. As a co-initiator, it joined hands with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and peer companies to define the industry's first terminal intelligence classification standard system, standardizing the development of AI mobile phones and accelerating the formation of industrial synergy among manufacturers.

When the popularity of foldable screens was slow, Honor invested more than 10% of its revenue each year in research and development, ultimately leading the industry's progress with its ultra-slim design, combining portability with flagship configurations, ushering foldable screens into the millimeter era and making them the primary devices for an increasing number of people.

The overseas market is also rapidly recovering lost ground. In the fourth quarter of 2023, less than two years after returning to the overseas market, Honor achieved profitable growth.

Its robust product capabilities have won over overseas users and media, earning Honor numerous awards this year for its products. With its slim design and comprehensive flagship configurations, the Honor Magic V2 RSR Porsche Design won the MWC 2024 GLOMO Award, making Honor the second Chinese tech enterprise after Huawei to receive this prestigious award in five years.

Shortly after, at the 2024 Mobile World Congress Shanghai, Honor Magic V2 once again achieved excellent results, winning the "Best Smartphone in Asia Award," solidifying Honor's position as a Chinese tech enterprise stepping onto the world stage.

By the end of this year, the all-new online-focused Honor GT series will also be officially launched, rekindling Honor's innate youthful genes and expanding coverage and benefits to a broader user base through the democratization of flagship technologies.

It is evident that Honor's growth rate is astonishing. Four years after independence, Honor is now experiencing a comprehensive explosion in product, technology, and brand strength. With the selfless dedication of its 14,000 employees, Honor is steadily carving out its own boundless sky and independent path of innovation leadership, making the "World Honor" brand shine brighter and brighter.

The sky is the limit. In March of this year, Honor officially launched the top-level domain name honor.com globally. As Zhao Ming said, today's Honor is going to its own distant horizon in its own name.

02

Bridging the Generational Gap: From Beyond to GO Beyond

Before the advent of an imaginative future world, it often requires innovative technology to bridge the generational gap.

In the book "Crossing the Chasm," author Geoffrey Moore, the "Godfather of Silicon Valley," mentions that there is a significant gap between the small circle that welcomes highly innovative disruptive products and their acceptance by the mainstream market. Whether a company can successfully cross this gap determines whether its products can be commercialized and ultimately determines the company's success or failure.

Focusing on the current smartphone industry, AI and foldable screens are undergoing such a transformative moment.

For Honor, this coincides with its vision of "creating a smart new world for everyone." These two strengths are powerful weapons for leading industry development and the best means of bridging the generational gap.

Just as AI autonomous driving is to the automotive industry, AI is also the future direction of smartphone development. A phone cannot be considered a flagship without AI.

As the industry's first full-scenario personalized AI operating system with a cross-application open ecosystem agent, MagicOS 9.0 can recognize and understand the content of a massive number of third-party applications and mimic human actions accordingly.

Simply put, Honor's AI agent understands and acts more like a human.

At the Magic7 series launch event, Zhao Ming demonstrated an astonishing scene: with just a voice command, the Honor phone automatically completed a complex ordering process, successfully placing an order for 2,000 cups of coffee.

Compared to previous "one command, one action" AI, it's not an exaggeration to say that MagicOS 9.0 will revolutionize human-computer interaction in the AI era, allowing users to achieve their intentions more efficiently without cumbersome clicks.

"The operating system for the AI era is the biggest layout Honor has made since its independence," Zhao Ming introduced. The YOYO agent already has mature human-centered scene understanding capabilities, capable of understanding 600 demand intentions, remembering 950 personal habits, and planning 270 complex tasks. It can automatically execute 900 tasks, such as ordering coffee and milk tea, inquiring about and canceling automatic app renewals, converting documents, managing app permissions and notifications, and filling out forms with a single command.

The practical effects show that Honor has indeed redefined new application scenarios in the AI era, bringing a revolutionary experience to users and potentially leading consumers into an unprecedented era of mobile phone "autonomous driving."

In another major development direction for the smartphone industry, foldable screens, Honor also has a strong voice.

The latest data from CINNO shows that in the second quarter of this year, sales of foldable smartphones in China reached 2.62 million units, a significant year-on-year increase of 125%, achieving triple-digit year-on-year growth for the fourth consecutive quarter. Some data predicts that the domestic foldable smartphone market will grow by 24% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter.

The overall growth of the industry is largely attributed to the driving force of benchmark foldable flagship models, with Honor's foldable models breaking industry records multiple times and leading the industry's development direction.

For example, the large foldable flagship Honor Magic V3 achieves an ultra-slim design through the new Honor Luban architecture, setting a new record for the thinnest inner-folding foldable phone with an astonishing 9.2mm folded body thickness and a weight of 226g, lighter than some straight-screen flagship models. Within its limited body, it also brings innovative experiences such as the third-generation Qinghai Lake battery, aerospace special fiber material, Honor Vision Relief Oasis eye protection screen, dual-satellite communication, and 2.5-meter water resistance, breaking the inherent contradiction between thinness and flagship configurations in previous foldable phones.

In the third quarter of this year, with the continued popularity of its innovative foldable products, Honor successfully ranked second in China's foldable smartphone market with a market share of 25.6%.

The overseas market is also thriving. In the first half of this year, the European large-format foldable phone market doubled, with Honor's sales of large-format foldable phones in Europe growing 22 times year-on-year, contributing the most to the growth of the entire local large-format foldable phone segment, with 70% of that growth coming from Honor.

Honor's continuous advancements in AI and foldable screens make it a challenger to the established order of the industry and a gradual evolver into an industry leader. Bridging the gaps in AI and foldable screens also affirms Honor's own character and brand spirit—GO BEYOND.

On the one hand, Honor remains grounded and focused, continuously accumulating and refining, building innovative technologies for the future from the ground up; on the other hand, facing Apple and any other powerful competitors, Honor demonstrates excellent determination, courage, and ability, showcasing an unwavering stance in breaking barriers and surpassing all rivals.

03

In the Name of Honor, Walking the Path of Honor

"Be Huawei's strongest competitor, surpass Huawei, and even shout down with Huawei," the words of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei bidding farewell to Honor still ring in our ears.

Honor has not been so confrontational. While never denying the benefits it received from Huawei, it has not hidden under Huawei's protection to enjoy its fruits but has struggled to carve out its own place in the market with a self-improving attitude.

When part of the Huawei system, Honor was always shackled, having to make way for Huawei's main brand in both strategic planning and product roadmaps.

Today, after independence, Honor has shed its inherent labels and, based on boundless aspirations and pursuits, continues to drive technological breakthroughs and leadership, increasingly "becoming itself" and competing head-to-head with powerful peers like Apple, Samsung, and Huawei.

"Walking towards one's own distant horizon in one's own name," Honor has found its unique development path based on its own values and brand culture:

Centered on consumers and striving individuals, adhering to the pursuit of innovation and the ultimate product philosophy, breaking the inherent order, standards, and boundaries of the industry, starting from user needs, and leading the evolution of products through one's own technological breakthroughs.

Honor, which practices this path, has brought about multiple technological breakthroughs and maintains an industry-leading position in eye protection, high-capacity batteries, satellite communications, and other areas.

"In eye protection, if Honor says it's second, no one dares to say they're first," Zhao Ming confidently stated in a recent video. This is indeed the case, as Honor has always been an industry benchmark in mobile phone eye protection.

This time, the Honor Magic7 series features the industry's only all-day AI natural light oasis eye protection screen, with the domestic screen achieving circularly polarized light technology for the first time, making the screen's glow closer to natural light and comprehensively caring for users' eye health through six characteristics: wave, brightness, rhythm, color, flicker, and spectrum. Coupled with AI defocus eye protection and dry eye friendliness, its eye protection capabilities have been further enhanced.

The newly integrated third-generation Qinghai Lake battery incorporates the optimal 10% silicon-carbon anode, far exceeding the industry's common 5% to 6% silicon content, achieving the maximum energy efficiency ratio of the entire battery. Coupled with the first-time adoption of the third-generation tri-tab technology, it significantly optimizes the physical impedance of the battery cell and temperature rise control during charging, ensuring stable performance even during high-power charging.

Thanks to advancements in battery technology, the entire Honor Magic7 series supports 100W wired fast charging and 80W wireless fast charging. In Turbo mode, the Honor Magic7 Pro can be fully charged in just 33 minutes with wired charging and 44 minutes with wireless charging, greatly enhancing the daily user experience.

The Honor Magic7 series also introduces the professional communication chip HONOR C2, which can enhance mobile phone signals by 20% in weak network scenarios through AI. Coupled with Beidou satellite messaging and AI satellite call noise reduction for Tiantong satellite communication, users' communication security in outdoor environments is greatly enhanced.

These technologies converge in the Honor Magic7 series, making it a currently formidable flagship with no shortcomings. This landmark flagship of epoch-making significance inevitably reminds one of the Mate 7 series for Huawei.

In 2014, Huawei's Mate 7 series made a strong debut, with cumulative shipments exceeding 4 million units within six months, establishing the Mate series' position as a business flagship and reversing the low-end image of domestic mobile phones in consumers' minds, marking a turning point of epoch-making significance.

This pinnacle moment may be replicated with the Honor Magic7.

Four-year-old Honor has emerged from the "glorious years" of the Huawei system and is rushing towards its own "boundless sky," reaching the shore of honor in the name of honor.