Honor 7X Launching in India in December at 'Unbeatable Price'

Honor 7X, unveiled globally by the Huawei-owned brand in October, will be launched in the Indian market in December. The brand’s Global President George Zhao said in an interview with IANS that it will introduce the Honor 7X at an “unbeatable price”, such that it will have no competitor in that segment. This is part of the company’s plan to become the country’s top smartphone brand within the next three years. Honor 7X will be available both online and offline as the company aims to improve upon its offline retail channels and boost the marketing in order to become the leader.

"We will launch Honor 7X in December at such a price that it will have no competitor in that segment," Zhao said while unveiling the smartphone maker's roadmap for the Indian market to a group of journalists in Chendgu, China over the weekend.

The Honor 7X smartphone has a 5.93-inch display with 18:9 aspect ratio and full-HD+ (1080x2160px) resolution, and dual cameras on the back. It runs the Android 7.0 Nougat-based EMUI 5.1 custom skin, and is powered by the octa-core HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC, with 4GB RAM. Keeping everything running is a 3340mAh battery. The handset features a duo of 16-megapixel and 2-megapixel rear cameras, and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.

It comes in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB storage variants, which are priced at CNY 1,299 (roughly Rs. 12,890), CNY 1,699 (approximately Rs. 16,850), and CNY 1,999 (about Rs. 19,820), respectively. All three variants support expandable storage via microSD card (up to 256GB) in a hybrid dual-SIM configuration.

Zhao said Honor plans to push its position up in the highly competitive Indian smartphone market by launching flagship products at "unbeatable price", introducing cutting edge technology, increasing presence in both online and offline platforms, and boosting its marketing efforts. In fact, it will start incorporating AI capabilities in its phones for the Indian market within the current quarter, he said.

Honor first introduced the AI capabilities in its Honor Magic phone. Although its application has so far been restricted to China because of the Internet ecosystem, it wants its customers in other countries to avail the automation facilities soon.

"We have the capability to out-compete other dominating players in the Indian smartphone market in terms of quality, but our marketing efforts need to improve," Zhao said, siganlling its intention to go aggressive in promotion of its upcoming products in India. Globally, Honor, which has now presence in 73 countries, spends just three per cent of its revenue in marketing.

"Honor began manufacturing in India with the Holly series. It is the first brand to respond to the Government of India's request for SOS feature on phones," Zhao said, adding that it will further ramp up its manufacturing efforts in India. "Honor shipped 98.8 per cent more devices in 2017 than in 2016. But in India, we need strengthen offline channels," Zhao said, adding that exclusive Honor demo shops will also be launched in India soon.

Currently, the smartphone market in India is dominated mostly by Chinese players spearheaded by Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Honor, among others. India recently surpassed the US to become the second-largest smartphone market in the world after China. And yet, according to Counterpoint Research, only one fourth of India's population uses smartphones, making the country an attractive destination for players in the mobile ecosystem.

Written with IANS inputs