Honor Launches ‘World’s Slimmest’ Foldable AI Smartphone

Chinese smartphone maker Honor – a spin-off of Huawei – said it is looking to expand into the premium market with the launch of what it called the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone.

The 5G-capable Honor Magic V3 is a book-type foldable with a folded thickness of 9.2 millimetres weighing 226 grams, slimmer than models from Samsung and Huawei, Honor said.

The company also touted the device’s AI capabilities, such as AI-powered defocus simulation for improving myopia, as well as the use of AI in motion-capture and organising photo albums.

Honor chief executive George Zhao said most other industry players are using third-party cloud AI technologies, while Honor is building the technology into the device.

On-device AI

“Industry players are all working quickly with AI partners on the cloud [computing services] side, but it’s on-device AI that will make a difference,” he told a press event on Friday, the South China Morning Post reported.

Foldables are an important growth sector in smartphones, growing 49 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, Counterpoint said last month.

Honor’s share of the global foldables market grew from 3 percent a year ago to 12 percent in the first quarter, making it the third-biggest vendor after Huawei and Samsung.

The company’s book-type foldable Honor Magic V2 was the most-shipped foldable in Western Europe in the quarter, Counterpoint said.

Honor is now looking to compete directly with the likes of Apple and Huawei in the premium smartphone segment, an area where IDC recently said foldables would play an important part.

Rise of foldables

Foldables with AI features are expected to boost smartphone sales in mainland China with total 2024 shipments rising 3.1 percent year-on-year to 279 million units, IDC said.

Honor ranked third in the premium segment in mainland China last year with a 6 percent share, Canalys said.

Huawei became the world’s biggest seller of foldable smartphones in the first quarter, deplacing Samsung, in spite of crippling US sanctions imposed since 2019.

Huawei’s foldable sales grew 257 percent year-on-year to take 35 percent of the worldwide market, compared to 23 percent for Samsung.