Honor
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Mid-range flagships like the Honor 20 Pro are giving premium phones a run for their money
Phone sales have been trending downward for some time now. There are a number of reasons for this — many of which you can read about in this piece I published last week. The creeping cost of premium handsets is pretty high on that list, with flagships now routinely topping $1,000 from many of the big names.
The big smartphone makers have begun to react to this, with budget flagship alternatives like the iPhone XR, Galaxy S10e and Pixel 3a. A new crop of mid-range flagships, however, are giving them a run for their money and serving as an important reminder that a quality handset doesn’t need to be priced in the four digits.
The Honor 20 Pro fits nicely in the latter camp, joining the likes of the recently announced OnePlus 7 Pro and Asus ZenFone 6 in demonstrating that premium specs can still be had for what was once considered a reasonable flagship price.
Of course, before we get into specifics of pricing with the newly announced handset, it bears mentioning whether Honor, a brand owned by Huawei, will actually ever make it to the States. That’s all pretty complicated — like Donald Trump in a trade war with with China complicated. The pricing on the London-launched Pro version is €599, putting it at around $670.
The phone’s got Huawei’s latest and greatest Kirin 980 processor, coupled with a 6.26-inch display with hole-punch cutout and a quartet of rear-facing cameras. Those include a wide angle with 117-degree shots, 48-megapixel main, telephoto and a macro, which is an interesting addition to the standard array. The Pro’s out at some point in the June or July time frame.
Huawei bans aside, it will be interesting to see how this new crop of more affordable premium devices impacts the rest of the big names up top.
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Sub-brands are the new weapon in China’s smartphone war
One of China’s top smartphone brands Vivo appears to have joined its fellows Oppo, Huawei and Xiaomi in setting up a new sub-brand as a softening market and heightened competition at home drive players to venture upon their original reach.
A new smartphone brand called iQoo made its debut on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, on Tuesday by greeting in English: “Hello, this is iQoo.” It also playfully encouraged people to guess how its name is pronounced, as the spelling doesn’t resonate with either Chinese or English speakers. Vivo immediately reposted iQoo’s message, calling iQoo a “new friend.”
Vivo has not further revealed its ties with iQoo, although the latter’s Weibo account is verified under Vivo’s corporate name. TechCrunch has contacted Vivo and will update the story when we have more information.
Screenshot of iQoo’s first Weibo post
Sub-brands have become a popular tactic for Chinese smartphone makers to lure new demographics without undermining and muddling their existing brand reputation. As the third-ranked player by shipments in 2018 according to research firm Counterpoint, Vivo is the only one in China’s top five smartphone companies without a subsidiary brand.
“Sub-brands can help fill the gap in parent companies,” Counterpoint’s research director James Yan told TechCrunch. “I think iQoo is a brand born for the gaming market, the online sales channel, or young consumers, similar to what Honor did to Huawei.”
Huawei cemented its top spot with solid growth in shipments last year by playing a two-pronged strategy. Its sub-brand Honor has its eyes on the mid-range and Huawei stays at the top end. Vivo’s sibling Oppo, which falls under the same electronics manufacturing outfit BBK, came up with an exclusively online brand Realme in 2018 to go after Xiaomi’s Redmi in India’s burgeoning smartphone market. Xiaomi pressed on by launching Poco for India’s high-tier market. To further solidify its multi-faceted approach, Redmi shed the Xiaomi branding in January to start operating as an independent brand focusing on cost efficiency.
These moves arrived as years of breakneck growth in China’s smartphone space comes to an end. Overall smartphone sales contracted 11 percent in 2018 according to Counterpoint, as users become more pragmatic and less likely to upgrade their handsets. Local players reacted swiftly by going global and introducing headline-grabbing features like Xiaomi’s folding screen and Honor’s pole-punch display, putting a squeeze on global players Apple and Samsung. In 2018, Huawei shored up a 25 percent market share to take the crown. Trailing behind was Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Apple . Samsung plunged 67 percnet to take seventh place.
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Huawei Honor’s smartphone with a hole-punch display is real
Honor officially launched the Honor View 20 today in Paris. Honor is Huawei’s sub-brand for mid-range phones. And the View 20 doesn’t look like your average smartphone — the company traded the notch for a hole-punch display.
Honor thinks this design isn’t as intrusive as a centered notch. And rumor has it that Samsung could also put a hole-punch display into the Samsung Galaxy S10.
I played with the Honor View 20 for a bit of time, and it definitely feels different from an iPhone X-style notch. Let’s start with the little details that annoy me. The 4.5mm cutout for the selfie camera isn’t exactly in the corner of the device and it looks a bit weird with a standard Android menu. Somehow, I want the cutout to be vertically centered — it’s not.
And yet, when you look at photos and videos, it looks great. After a few minutes, you barely notice it. It feels like yet another icon in the notification area while the rest is just s-c-r-e-e-n. I hope more companies are going to follow this trend.
The device features a gigantic 6.4-inch LCD display with rounded corners — I’ve been using OLED displays for a couple of years, and it’s hard to look at LCD displays again. It’s nearly as big as an iPhone XS Max. While you can’t find a bezel at the top of the device, the View 20 still has a chin — a small bezel at the bottom of the device.
Unlike Huawei’s P20 Pro, the company has moved the fingerprint sensor to the back of the device. It has two cameras on the back — a 48 megapixel Sony IMX596 sensor as well as a second, cheap sensor to detect objects in 3D and add background blur using software features.
Huawei/Honor has updated its system-on-a-chip. The company has been working on its own chips instead of working with Qualcomm or Samsung. The result is a new Kirin 980 system-on-a-chip. Like Apple’s A12 Bionic, the company now uses a 7nm manufacturing process. The phone has a 4,000 mAh battery.
It comes in four colors — Midnight Black, Sapphire Blue, Phantom Red and Phantom Blue. As you can see in the photos, the company is still setting its phones apart from the competition thanks to colorful backs with mesmerizing reflections. This time, the Honor View 20 has a V-shaped pattern on the back. Unfortunately, it attracts fingerprints like crazy.
The Honor View 20 is going to be available starting tomorrow for €569/£499 for 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or €649/£579 for 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. As usual, Huawei/Honor focuses on Asia and Europe.
But the best part about this new phone is that you get an exclusive character skin for Fortnite when you buy it. What else do you need from a phone?
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Chinese stocks plummet as Huawei CFO arrest raises trade fears
A string of Chinese stocks fell hard on Thursday after the arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver deepened concerns over U.S.-China trade tensions.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong was off 2.76 percent as of 12:40 p.m. On the Mainland side, the CSI 300 index of the top 300 stocks trading in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell 2.1 percent. The U.S. stock market is closed Wednesday to honor former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.
The crash arrived after Canadian officials detained Meng, daughter of Huawei’s founder and chief executive officer Ren Zhengfei, on suspicion that Huawei has violated American sanctions on Iran. Meng is facing extradition to the U.S.
Shares of Huawei’s main rival ZTE nose-dived nearly 6 percent in Hong Kong by midday. Meng’s news also hit the suppliers of employee-owned Huawei across the Asian stock markets. Among the worst performers is Shennan Circuit, which slipped nearly 10 percent in Shenzhen as of this writing.
Huawei and its main rival ZTE have been targets of the U.S. government that worries about the alleged ties between the telecom equipment makers and the Chinese government. The U.S.’s ban on ZTE sparks concerns that Huawei will face a similar fate. In April, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a seven-year ban that would restrict American component makers from selling to ZTE, which in 2017 pleaded guilty to violating sanctions on Iran and North Korea.
Chinese stocks had been on a downward trend prior to Meng’s arrest as a result of rising U.S. tariffs over the last few months. In October, the Shanghai benchmark index dropped to a four-year low.
Updated with charts on HSCEI and ZTE.
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HomeHero wants to work with hospitals to connect in-home caregivers to seniors
CEO Kyle Hill spent a lot of time building technology for his parents that would help them find better service for their aging family members — who were around 2,000 miles away across the country. So, when his last startup idea didn’t work out, he decided to bet the company on a new idea around that. That’s why he launched HomeHero, which is now partnering with hospitals… Read More
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Meet The Startups Vying For The Crunchie For Best New Startup Of 2015
The 9th Annual Crunchies are right around the corner, and some of the best and brightest startups, companies and leaders are vying for the chance to win the coveted Crunchie award in one of the 12 categories up for grabs.
As the event draws closer, we’ll be featuring the finalists in each of the 12 categories up for grabs, starting with the nominees for one of the most prolific awards… Read More
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