Honor, a spin-off from Huawei, announced the Magic V2 on July 12, setting a starting price of 8,999 yuan ($1,245). When folded, it's almost as thin as an iPhone – 9.9 millimeters as opposed to the 14's 7.85 millimeters, without a casing. Samsung is expected to introduce "thinner and more lightweight" foldables at its event on July 26, according to a blog post that teased the news.
This week on Chinese e-commerce site JD.com's "hot sales" smartphone rankings, the Honor Magic V2 foldable is among the top three contenders, competing with Apple iPhone models. On July 12, Honor - spun off from Huawei - officially launched the device at a starting price of 8,999 yuan ($1,245) and demand has been so great that delivery times for new orders have been pushed back to mid-September. On Thursday morning, the 9,999-yuan Magic V2 model was the second most popular smartphone on JD.com, while a 7,799-yuan Apple iPhone 14 Pro was first. The iPhone 13 held third place.
The Honor Magic V2 is very unique in that it is 9.9 millimeters thick when folded, which makes it nearly the same thickness as an iPhone 14 (7.85 millimeters without a case). Despite its thinness, the phone boasts a "reasonable battery life," according to Ethan Qi, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research. Honor claims the battery is only 2.72 millimeters thick and can last for up to 14 hours when watching videos on its unfolded large screen, while the iPhone 14 can last for around 20-30 hours, depending on the model.
Qi believes the Magic V2's impressive pre-sales figures in China show that the demand for premium phones is still strong and this bodes well for the growth of foldable phones in the country. He noted, "The premium segment is not very big, but it's the segment everyone wants to win."
Competition is intensifying.Samsung's upcoming launch event to be held on July 26 promises to introduce its latest foldables, which will be "slimmer and lighter". The company is advertising the livestream of the event, aptly named "Join the Flip Side", extensively in China.Its Galaxy Z Fold4 will be available at 10,999 yuan on JD.com, whereas its newly released Galaxy Z Flip3, which opens up like a flip phone, has a listed price of 4,699 yuan.Premium foldables from Huawei, Xiaomi and Vivo can also be found in China's market.
In the first quarter, foldable smartphones saw year-on-year growth of 64% while the global smartphone market declined by 14.2%. According to Counterpoint Research, 1.08 million foldables were sold in China alone, which more than doubled from the previous year. To capitalize on this success, tech company Honor is selling its Magic V2 model both domestically and internationally, with more than 10,000 units sold through Douyin, a Chinese livestreaming platform. This corresponds to the prominence of livestreaming in China, which constitutes 17.7% of the nation's online retail sales. Honor also sells its phones via Alibaba's Tmall and Kuaishou, two other livestreaming outlets. Earlier, Honor was a brand of Huawei but this changed after U.S. sanctions on the latter, leading to the transfer of the company to a new group of buyers, including the government of Shenzhen.
Comments