Honor recently launched the Magic 4 in its home country, with CEO Zhao Ming expressing gratitude to customers for their support throughout the fiscal year. The CEO also threw some shade at its competitors during a recent media interview.
Honor has become the fastest growing global brand and the 3rd largest Android smartphone manufacturer in China. Zhao provided a statistical breakdown claiming 60% of Honor users switched from other brands such as Apple or Huawei.
Zhao emphasized that numerous Chinese smartphone makers wanted to compete against Apple, however, no proper effort was shown to make them viable Apple alternatives.
The CEO reiterated consumer needs for security, reliability, privacy, peace of mind, and customer service experience often provided to Apple users. He stated:
Here at Honor, we aim instead to provide the best all-around aftersales service experience to Honor users. We craft our phones with delicacy and patience, building innovations one by one, to provide a true flagship experience for our users.
Zhao Ming also commented that Honor does not make bold claims or overhypes its smartphones, which can have adverse consequences. Zhao stated:
In various fields, can you come up with an experience that surpasses Apple? This is not about raising your hand to shout slogans or waving your fist, but to be real. Therefore, we must benchmark Apple from the dimension of consumer experience, and It’s not a marketing method. The more the marketing shouts, the worse it will eventually fall, because when consumers get their mobile phones, if you over-market them, there will be backlash.
Huawei’s absence has left a huge gap for consumers, proving to be beneficial for Apple and newcomers such as Honor to take over the market. Zhao pointed out that even though the company does consider Apple to be a staunch competitor, it does want to change its dominance in the market, however, Honor only wanted to establish a relationship of loyalty with its customers and maintain their trust.
