Huawei’s sub-brand Honor is expanding its smart devices portfolio, apart from phones and watches, to televisions.
The Honor TV, which has a pop-up camera, is going to be launched in China and India in the next few weeks.
Other Chinese smartphone brands such as Xiaomi, Realme, Gionee, Hisense and Oppo have launched TVs and OnePlus is expected to launch soon.
“Whichever direction we are working on, we want to expand our product portfolio line-up to make people’s life smarter,” Chris Sun Baigong, President of Honor Middle East and Africa, told TechRadar Middle East, after launching its second flagship smartphone of the year – 20 Pro – after View 20.
Eventually, he said that what Honor is dedicated is to bring the best user experience to the users – either at home, on the move or in the office.
“We have wearable for people on the move and smartphone for people in the office,” he said.
When asked about the region, he said that the TV will be launched at the right time but did not specify a time.
According to media reports, the Honor Vision will be unveiled on August 9 at the Huawei Developers Conference.
Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, said that it is a natural progression for any brand to enter into multiple displays form factors such as laptops, tablets and smart TVs because most of the supply chain is not difficult to understand.
Good move from Honor
In the smart TV space, Pathak said that Android OS is still okay and anybody can go with an alternative OS.
“Brands don’t need to depend on the Android OS as they do in smartphone space,” he said.
Samsung is using Tizen OS and LG is using webOS for TVs.
Huawei has been working on its HongMeng OS, which claims to be about 60% faster than Android and is also significantly faster than macOS.
“The TV market has higher margins and a lot of synergies will eventually come up with smartphones and TVs and that is the content. It will all be about the content play going forward. The differentiation today in smartphones is based on three things – display, processor and camera,” he said.
The competitive dynamics are also driving the market, he said and added that the TV market is traditionally driven by Samsung, LG and Sony and no one have challenged them.
Content strategy
Moreover, he said that the TV market has more room for new players to enter and the market has a lot of “long tail effect”.
“Every OEM player will have a content strategy in place in the next three to four years, such as free hours of content when you buy a TV or bundle it with VR and AR in future. Going forward, no brand cannot make money only from the hardware and they need to think from the software, content and service level,” he said.
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