Honor released its Magic V2 foldable on July 12, 2023, starting with the China market.
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BEIJING — On Chinese e-commerce site JD.com’s “hot sales” smartphone ranking this week, the Honor Magic V2 competes with the foldable. apple iPhone models for the top three spots.
Honor, a spinoff from Huawei, launched its Magic V2 on July 12 with a starting price of 8,999 yuan ($1,245).
The sale officially started on Thursday. But a week of pre-sale demand has pushed delivery times for new orders to mid-September, according to the app of JD.com, a platform commonly used to buy electronics in China.
The Jadoo V2’s 9,999-yuan model is second in popularity on JD.com smartphone sales as of Thursday morning, while the 7,799-yuan Apple iPhone 14 Pro is in first place. The iPhone 13 took the third position.
Honor’s new device is almost as thin as the iPhone – 9.9 mm vs 14 by 7.85 mm, without any case. That means the Magic V2 is about three-eighths of an inch thick when folded.
Importantly, the foldable phone was able to balance thinness with “reasonable battery life.” Ethan Qi, associate director of Counterpoint Research. “From my perspective, the biggest highlights [for the phone] It has the industry’s thinnest body (9.9mm) and lightest weight (231g).”
Honor claims that the Magic V2’s battery is only 2.72mm thick and can support around 14 hours of video viewing on the phone’s large open screen. The iPhone 14 claims to get around 20-30 hours of video playback on a single battery charge, depending on the phone model.
“The Magic V2’s pre-sales figures in China are a positive sign and show the flexibility of the premium segment, which bodes well for the development of foldables in the country,” Cui said.
“The premium segment is not huge, but it is the segment that everyone wants to win.”
Competition is increasing.
Samsung is set to release “slimmer and lighter” foldables at an event on July 26. According to a blog post To annoy. The company is also promoting the “Join the Flipside” launch event livestream in China.
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold4 sells for 10,999 yuan on JD.com, while its Galaxy Z Flip3, which opens like a flip phone, lists for 4,699 yuan.
Huawei, Xiaomi and Vivo also sell foldables in the premium price range in China.
Pockets of growth in smartphone shortages
Foldables are a bright spot in the shrinking global smartphone market.
In the first quarter, China’s foldable market more than doubled to 1.08 million units from a year ago, according to Counterpoint Research.
This helped boost the global foldable smartphone market with 64 percent year-over-year growth in the first quarter, Counterpoint said.
In contrast, the global smartphone market fell 14.2 percent in the first three months of the year, and China’s fell 8 percent, the data showed.
In China, Honor is selling on major e-commerce platforms, including Douyin, a local version of TikTok that is becoming a growing portal for sales through live streams.
As of Thursday morning, Honor had sold over 10,000 Magic V2 units on Douyin.
Live streaming has become a growing portal for sales in China. The country’s live streaming sales accounted for about 17.7 percent of total online retail sales, or about $180 billion, in the first half of the year, according to Commerce Ministry data released Thursday.
Honor also sells its phones on Alibaba’s Tmall e-commerce platform and the Kuaishou short video app. Both platforms, as well as JD, support live streaming sales.
The smartphone company was previously a brand under Huawei. But after US sanctions on the telecommunications giant, Honor was sold to a group of buyers that included the government of Shenzhen, where the company is headquartered.
— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.
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Source by [CNBC News]
