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Source: Huanqiu.com

[Global Network Technology Reporter Zheng Xiangqi]In sports competitions, athletes who do not have an advantage at the beginning can also achieve a comeback with their never-give-up efforts and perseverance.

In the business scene, there are also many companies that have become business legends after coming from behind. On August 4, Wu Sheng, founder of the Scene Lab, talked about Honor in his annual Beginning of Autumn speech, which is a vivid example. From the second year of "flying solo" to the "first year of globalization" to maintaining high-quality growth for many consecutive quarters, Honor is moving steadily towards "global glory".

"In the journey of globalization, Honor believes that the most important thing is not market expansion, but choosing a quality growth strategy to always achieve a positive cycle and positive feedback in the market." Wu Sheng said, "strong people, strong operations, and leadership in technological thought" are the three keywords for Honor's globalization.

"Strong people" and "strong operations": Inclusive AI,Adapting to local conditions

A comparison of a set of data can show how far Honor has traveled in the globalization route. In 2021, Honor's global market share ranked eighth. At the beginning of the "first year of globalization" in Q1 2022, Honor achieved a substantial increase in shipments of 4, 5 or even 7 times in different overseas markets. With its increased layout in the global market, Honor's sales in the European market increased by 155% year-on-year in Q1 2024, and its sales in the Latin American market increased by 293% year-on-year and ranked among the TOP5, and its horizontal folding screen share ranked second in the world.

The explosive growth of data is certainly an important dimension to measure the development of a company, but behind the objective data, Honor pays special attention to the subjective experience of global consumers. Honor CEO Zhao Ming has repeatedly emphasized, "For Honor, the ups and downs of market share are no longer the most important concern, and the mobile phone industry is no longer a game of reaching the top. We will return to the fundamentals of business and the market and look at technological innovation with a long-term perspective, which also means that Honor will have the opportunity to serve consumers in the long run."

As Wu Sheng said, "a strong man", under the current wave of generative AI, Honor has long defined the "people-centered" AI values ​​and the four-layer AI development path, and used this to bring more and more "understanding you" and "easy to use" personalized end-side AI services to global consumers.

In March this year, Honor proposed a four-layer AI strategic architecture. The first layer uses AI to enable cross-system integration, the second layer uses AI to reconstruct the operating system, the third layer is the application of AI on the terminal side, and the fourth layer is the end-cloud collaboration of AI. Among them, Honor is building an open and prosperous AI ecosystem with global innovation forces based on the first and second layers.

In this regard, Zhao Ming once said in an interview, "As a smart terminal manufacturer, Honor continues to focus on underlying innovation hidden 'under the iceberg', using device-side AI to reconstruct hardware, experience, and services, thereby enhancing users' ability to control cloud-side AI, helping global users better integrate into the AI ​​world and gain ever-increasing experiences and capabilities."

How is this experience presented? Take the overseas version of Anydoor released by Honor during MWC 2024 as an example. It currently supports more than 100 top overseas applications, covering seven high-frequency scenarios such as travel, office, social, search, entertainment, shopping, and food. When the services of a terminal manufacturer deeply penetrate into every life scenario of consumers in different countries, and take the initiative to make suggestions and complete related tasks like a caring "assistant", it will undoubtedly firmly occupy the minds of consumers and promote the formation of a positive business logic closed loop.

This is also in line with what Wu Sheng said about "strong operations". It is worth mentioning that Honor's "strong operations" not only focus on the real usage scenarios of users in various markets to build an open AI ecosystem, but also launch corresponding strategies and products for each market according to local conditions. Taking Europe, Honor's "second home market", as an example, it mainly focuses on the Magic series dual flagships and digital series, so as to better match the needs of European consumers and partners for high-end products, and fully participate in the global competition with giants such as Apple and Samsung.

As Zhao Ming said, "Apple and Samsung are highly concentrated in the European market. Honor does not want to compete in the low-end market in Europe, but must compete with Apple and Samsung in the high-end market. Therefore, Honor must build the European market as its home and second domestic market, constantly win the trust of operators and consumers with innovative technology and experience, and establish a foundation for future growth and development."

"Technology Thought Leadership": Driven by Innovation, Folding "City Protection"

In the view of industry insiders, the current straight-screen flagship mobile phones have entered the era of micro-innovation and face the industry consensus that it is difficult to achieve differentiation. In contrast, foldable screen mobile phones have a broader space for innovation in terms of form, design and software functions. Therefore, in the global high-end market, foldable screens have become a powerful weapon for domestic manufacturers to challenge Samsung and Apple.

Counterpoint also pointed out in a related report that Chinese smartphone brands will continue to lead the domestic foldable screen mobile phone market and further seize more market share through overseas expansion.

In Honor's globalization journey, the foldable screen is undoubtedly an important footnote. At last year's MWC, Zhao Ming announced that the Honor Magic series' dual flagship strategy of "foldable flagship + all-round flagship" was officially launched globally. Over the past year, as Honor's overseas development strategy framework has become clearer, Honor has released a series of foldable screen mobile phones with different forms and highlights on global stages such as IFA.

At a time when thinness and lightness have become the "first technological strength" of foldable screens, Honor's foldable screens are increasingly consolidating their "moat" in overseas markets with their design that continues to set new records for thinness and lightness, and their "uncompromising" high-performance configurations, AI defocused oasis eye protection screens and other advantageous technologies. According to data from multiple research institutions, in Q1 2024, Honor's foldable screen market share ranked third in the global and Western European markets, and horizontal foldable screens ranked second in the global and Western European markets. In the first four months of its launch in the European market, sales of foldable phones increased by 884% year-on-year.

Wu Sheng said that when it comes to Honor's globalization, what is more important is the innovative leadership in technology, such as the continuous innovation and polishing based on the folding screen form factor. This leading technological innovation has won Honor the respect of international markets from Europe to the Middle East.

It cannot be ignored that Honor has also made frequent "big moves" in the folding screen market recently. In June this year, the launch of Honor's first vertical folding phone Magic V Flip completed the last piece of the puzzle of its full folding screen matrix, making it a mobile phone brand with full-form folding screen products on sale. In July, Honor Magic V3 once again set a new record for the thinnest inward folding screen with a thickness of 9.2mm in the folded state.

As more new foldable screen products are gradually launched in overseas markets, it is not difficult to imagine that Honor, which continues to "bury its head in planting trees", will have more confidence to compete with Apple and Samsung in high dimensions, and is expected to press the "fast forward button" for high-quality development again in overseas markets such as Europe.

"Strong people, strong operations, and technological thought leadership" may not be able to fully summarize Honor's globalization "code", but these keywords are undoubtedly the important cornerstones for Honor to emerge on the global stage and achieve latecomer advantage. It is these core elements that enable Honor to move forward steadily in the fierce global market competition, constantly bring surprises to consumers, and also win more development opportunities and space for itself. With this as the rudder, Honor will also ride the wind and waves on the global channel and sail to the farther shore.