At Honor they are convinced that they are going to lead the market for folding devices. This is your plan to get it

“Spain is an open and very good country for foreign brands, but also very challenging due to competition and focus on low prices.” With those words he responds Laurence Li, new Honorary Country Manager for Spain and Portugalto the answer of how he sees the new market ahead. Until about four months ago, Laurence oversaw Honor’s operations in the Gulf regions from Dubai and previously led Huawei’s Consumer Business Group in Latin America.

Today you have a huge challenge ahead of you. Honor has been operating for four years in our borders as an independent brand and the executive is clear about how far he wants to take it. Because Laurence Li is firm in his position: “Honor should be one of the top three consumer brands in Spain, not just a mobile brand.”

Competing at the top starting with Spain

At the beginning of the year We had the opportunity to speak with Tony RanCEO of Honor in Europe, who already told us two things. The first, that Europe is going to be the second most important market for the company. The second, that it is not going to descend into the mud of the entry range and low prices, where there are hardly any margins. The company knows that the juicy segment is the high-endthe premium product, and that is where they are going to focus.

All this starts in Spain, “a really good market for all Chinese and foreign brands” due to its openness. All Chinese brands have had a very good acceptance in our countryand if not, tell Xiaomi, Huawei, Omoda, Jaecoo, MG or BYD. These companies destroyed their respective markets by offering low prices and competent products, only to later make the leap to premium products once they had established themselves. The case of Xiaomi is the most obvious.

Honor is going to save that step by being fully aware of it. “If you are looking for an entry-level phone with the lowest price, other brands would be a better option, to be honest. Now, if you want to buy something of quality, with innovation, that is, a good product, a product with AI, Honor will be the best alternative,” says Laurence.

The firm is aware that right now its market share is what it is. The latest data They claim that Apple (27%), Samsung (26.5%) and Xiaomi (23.7%) lead the Spanish market. The fourth brand is Oppo with 5.7% and the fifth position is occupied by Motorola with 2.2%. Honor, for its part, reaches 1.3%. It would help to achieve a better position by launching cheaper products, attacking the already saturated entry range, but the firm’s strategy does not go there. Honor does not want to be a brand linked to low price, but to quality.

“Right now, people don’t change their cell phones that often. They do it every three or four years, maybe even every five. If you are going to use your cell phone for five years, you would prefer a better product and you would even pay more,” explains Li, who believes that the financing options offered by companies and retailers can help cover the expense.

While the low-end market is being pushed by operators with the aim of increasing the number of 5G devices, Li says, the market for “high-end and premium” products is increasing because more and more people want good quality phones and are willing to pay more because it will last three or four years. The logic is clear.

One might wonder if Laurence Li, coming from the Dubai offices and managing Honor’s operations in the Gulf; and having previously worked in Latin America, he has noticed some difference in consumer behavior. “I don’t think there’s a big difference,” he explains.

Quite the contrary, he believes that there is an important similarity between the three cultures. The executive makes the comparison with cars. “In Dubai, and even here, more and more people are buying Chinese electric cars made in China.” In his own words, “more and more people want to buy innovative products and accept Chinese products (…) People want to try Chinese products, and that is a good trend.”

What Laurence Li is telling us between the lines is that The perception of ‘made in China’ is changing. What was once synonymous with a cheap and regular product, today is pivoting to a premium, solvent and capable of standing up to the most established brands from South Korea, Japan or the United States. We are seeing it in all segments: white goods, televisions, sound, automotive, mobile phones and, soon, we will see it in household appliances.

Lead the market based on folding and artificial intelligence

If competing in the low range is getting down in the mud and getting dirty, doing so in the premium range means playing in the same league as devices from Samsung and Apple, two names that are not easy to overshadow. One of Honor’s plans to achieve this is to conquer foldables. “We will be leaders in foldable devices, we will be there, we will be the strongest,” says Laurence while pointing out the Honor Magic V5 which I use as a personal phone.

In just four years, Honor has gone from being born to launching the thinnest folding terminal on the market. It is a device that breaks with all the conventions that a novice user of a terminal like this could have: the battery lasts, it feels resistant, it is light, thin, it is comfortable to use, it has a good camera and, when folded, it is attached to a conventional mobile phone. Looking at it with perspective, improving a product like this seems complicated.

Laurence, laughing, tells us that he cannot talk about future plans, but he clarifies that improving a foldable involves two things: hinge and battery. Honor has invested heavily in silicon-carbon batterieswhose results are sensational, and this same year its Magic V5 achieved a Guinness record Thanks to its hinge, it was able to hold 104 kilos. In the future, we will surely see stronger hinges and longer-lasting batteries, innovations that are no small feat in devices that are just five millimeters thick.

The other big plan involves, surprise, artificial intelligence. Honor has a plan, the Alpha Planto lead AI and be a reference. The budget is 10 billion dollars and the objective is to create an ecosystem of products, both its own and third parties, interconnected through this technology. The idea is that the AI ​​works for you without you realizing that it is doing so.

In addition to our own developments, “we are connected to all kinds of third parties, including ChatGPT or DeepSeek, and the system’s AI connects with the applications.” He gives us some examples, such as when we arrive at the airport the smartphone automatically shows us the boarding pass or the phone goes on silent if we enter a meeting. The focus is on how “AI, cloud AI and other AI technologies can improve your daily life.”

They have also implemented it in the camera to edit, optimize the zoom and allow options such as transcribing in real time or summarizing the interview at hand today, for example.

How to reach the user and a look at the future

In China, 50-60% of Honor sales take place in physical stores. People get information online, but they prefer to go to the store, touch it, try it, and then make the purchase. There is a “proof” factor that is important. It is no coincidence that the company has opened its first physical store, the Alpha Store, in the heart of Shenzhen’s wealthiest district.

In that store there are not only Honor products, but all those devices that integrate with its ecosystem in one way or another. We are talking about speakers, instruments, controls, keyboards, mice, accessories, etc. To have, they even have a cafeteria. If physical sales are important and you are looking to be a premium brand, it is normal to open a huge store in a shopping center like the one you are in.

We are already seeing this ecosystem philosophy here. In their online store they not only sell Honor products, but also Honor Choice products manufactured by other brands. Quick examples: a speaker from iKanoo or a portable coffee machine from Cino. In China, another of the brands they are working with is Bambu Lab, the 3D printer company.

In Spain, at the moment, there are no plans to open physical stores. “Not for now,” says Laurence, who for the moment prefers to focus on working with partners, operators and retailers. The physical store is, in some ways, a natural step (see Huawei either Xiaomi), but before running you have to walk.

For Honor, operators like MásOrange or Vodafone and retailers like MediaMarkt or El Corte Inglés are important. The firm is going to enhance its presence in these places and it is something that is already noticeable. A curious fact: shortly before going to Madrid to do this interview I went to El Cortes Inglés for reasons totally unrelated to Xataka, and there I found, for the first time, an Honor stand with a company promoter. It could be seen as something minor, but to me it seemed really symbolic for one thing: branding.

“The first step is to collaborate with the key players in the industry and build a win-win situation, to grow together; maybe in phase 2, maybe in the near future, if we find a good location, we could think about a physical store. A physical store is not just for sales, it is really good for branding, for people to touch the product,” Laurence explains to us.

In short, Laurence is clear that the first thing he must do to take Honor where he wants to take her is to give her visibility. And it is no small feat, because within five years Laurence wants HONOR to be “at least among the top three players in the industry.” In Spain it is even more ambitious: “at the very least, the leader in smartphones.”

The firm also aspires to be perceived as more than just a mobile brand. It wants to sell all types of products, from mobile phones and tablets to watches, audio and computers, that is, to be a general consumer brand. According to Laurence, “Honor should be one of the three consumer brands, not just a mobile brand.”

Cover image | Honor

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