- Honor, a Huawei spin-off, launched the Magic V2 on July 12 with a starting price of 8,999 yuan ($1,245).
- The device folds out to be as thin as an iPhone – 9.9mm compared to 7.85mm in the 14, without a case.
- Samsung is set to launch a “thinner and lighter” foldable at its July 26 event, according to a blog post.
Honor released the foldable Magic V2 on July 12, 2023, starting with the Chinese market.
honor
BEIJING — In Chinese e-commerce site JD.com’s “hot-selling” smartphone rankings this week, the foldable Honor Magic V2 vies with Apple’s iPhone models for the top three spots.
Honor, a Huawei spin-off, launched the Magic V2 on July 12 with a starting price of 8,999 yuan ($1,245).
Sales officially started on Thursday. But a week of presale orders pushed delivery times for new orders to mid-September, according to JD.com, a popular platform for buying electronics in China.
The 9,999 yuan Magic V2 ranked second in popularity among JD.com smartphone sales on Thursday morning, while the 7,799 yuan Apple iPhone 14 Pro ranked first. The iPhone 13 ranked third.
The new Honor folds down to be as thin as an iPhone – 9.9mm versus 14’s 7.85mm, no problem. This means the Magic V2 is about three-eighths of an inch thick when folded.
More importantly, the foldable phone was able to strike a balance between thinness and “reasonable battery life”. Ethan Key, associate director at Counterpoint Research. In my opinion, the most important points [for the phone] It’s the thinnest body (9.9mm) and lightest weight (231g) in the industry.
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 exposed screen. The iPhone 14 claims around 20-30 hours of video viewing on a single battery charge, depending on the bar phone model.
“Magic V2 pre-sale sales figures in China are a positive indicator and show the resilience of the high-end segment, which bodes well for the growth of foldable devices in the country,” Qi said.
” The privileged part is not very big, but it is the part that everyone wants to win. »
The competition is intensifying.
Samsung is gearing up to launch a “thinner and lighter” foldable at its July 26 event, according to a blog post Harassment. The company is also promoting its “Join the Flip Side” launch event in China.
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold4 sells for 10,999 yuan on JD.com, while the Galaxy Z Flip3, which opens like a foldable phone, is priced at 4,699 yuan.
Huawei, Xiaomi, and Vivo also sell foldable devices in China at an excellent price.
Foldable devices are a beacon of hope in the declining global smartphone market.
In the first quarter, China’s foldable market more than doubled from a year ago to 1.08 million units, according to Counterpoint Research.
Counterpoint said it helped boost the global foldable smartphone market, growing 64% year-over-year in the first quarter.
By contrast, the global smartphone market fell 14.2% in the first three months of the year and China 8%, the data showed.
Honor also sells internationally, but the brand’s specific plans for the Magic V2 are still unclear.
In China, Honor sells on major e-commerce platforms, including Douyin, the local version of TikTok that has become a growing portal for live selling.
On Thursday morning, Honor sold over 10,000 Magic V2 units to Douyin.
Live streaming has become a growing sales gateway in China. The country’s streaming sales accounted for about 17.7% of all online retail sales in the first half of the year, or about $180 billion, according to Commerce Department data released Thursday.
Honor also sells its phones on Alibaba’s Tmall e-commerce platform and Kuaishou short video app. Both platforms, as well as JD, support live sales.
The smartphone company was previously a brand of Huawei. But after US sanctions on the telecom giant, Honor was sold to a group of buyers that included the government in Shenzhen, where the company is headquartered.
— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.
