Honor launched the Honor Magic V5 on Wednesday July 2, because it seems to problem Samsung within the foldable house.
Honor
Honor on Wednesday touted the slimness and battery capability of its newly launched skinny foldable telephone, because it lays down a contemporary problem to market chief Samsung.
The Honor Magic V5 goes will initially go on sale in China, however the Chinese language tech agency will probably carry the system to worldwide markets later this 12 months.
The corporate, which spun off from Chinese tech giant Huawei in 2020, is trying to stand out from rivals with key options of the Magic V5, like synthetic intelligence, battery and dimension.
Honor mentioned the Magic V5 is 8.8 mm to 9mm when folded, relying on the colour alternative. The telephone’s predecessor, the Magic V3 — Honor skipped the Magic V4 title — was 9.2 mm when folded. Honor mentioned the Magic V5 weighs 217 grams to 222 grams, once more, relying on the colour mannequin. The earlier model was 226 grams.
In China, Honor will launch a particular 1 terabyte storage dimension model of the Magic V5, which it says could have a battery capability of greater than 6000 milliampere-hour — among the many highest for foldable telephones.
Honor has tried exhausting to tout these options, as competitors in foldables ramps up, at the same time as all these units have a really small share of the general smartphone market.
Honor vs. Samsung
Foldables represented lower than 2% of the general smartphone market in 2024, in keeping with Worldwide Information Company. Samsung was the most important participant with 34% market share adopted by Huawei with slightly below 24%, IDC added. Honor took the fourth spot with an almost 11% share.
Honor is trying to get a head begin on Samsung, which has its personal foldable launch subsequent week on July 9.
Francisco Jeronimo, a vp on the Worldwide Information Company, mentioned the Magic V5 is a powerful providing from Honor.
“That is the dream foldable smartphone that any consumer who’s on this class will consider,” Jeronimo advised CNBC, pointing to options such because the battery.
“This telephone continues to push the bar ahead, and it’ll problem Samsung as they’re about to launch their seventh era of foldable telephones,” he added.
The thinness of a foldable telephone has become a battleground for smartphone makers to attraction to shoppers who need the massive display screen dimension the system has to supply with out further weight.
At its occasion subsequent week, Samsung is anticipated to launch a foldable that’s thinner than its predecessor and will come near difficult Honor’s providing by means of dimension, analysts mentioned. If that occurs, then Honor will probably be dealing with extra competitors, particularly in opposition to Samsung, which has an even bigger world footprint.
“The most important problem for Honor is the model fairness and distribution attain vs Samsung, the place the Korean vendor has the sting,” Neil Shah, co-founder of Counterpoint Analysis, advised CNBC.
Honor’s push into worldwide markets past China is still fairly young, with the corporate trying to construct up its model.
“Additional, if Samsung catches up with a thinner form-factor in upcoming iterations, because it has been the true pioneer in foldables with its vertical integration experience from shows to batteries, the differentiating issue may slender for Honor,” Shah added.
Vertical integration refers to when an organization owns a number of elements of a product’s provide chain. Samsung has a show and battery enterprise which supplies the elements for its foldables.
Honor talks up AI
Smartphone gamers, together with Honor, have additionally appeared to face out through the AI features available on their device.
In March, Honor pledged a $10 billion investment in AI over the following 5 years, with a part of that going towards the event of next-generation brokers which can be seen as extra superior private assistants.
Honor mentioned its AI assistant Yoyo can work together with different AI fashions, similar to these created by DeepSeek and Alibaba in China, to create presentation decks.
The corporate additionally flagged its AI agent can hail a taxi experience throughout a number of apps in China, routinely accepting the quickest experience to reach? and cancelling the remaining.