The whole story of Honor's "contact" with Doubao Mobile

The smartphone industry, which had been calm for some time, was stirred up by a bombshell.

On April 13th, it was reported that Honor, a leading domestic mobile phone manufacturer, is in talks with ByteDance. The core topic is the joint development of the new - generation "Doubao Phone".

Regarding this rumor, Honor's official has not responded yet. However, a core person close to this cooperation confirmed the authenticity of the news to All - Weather Technology and pointed out that the two parties have not reached an agreement on the details of the brand cooperation.

For Honor, the state of mind at the negotiation table is indeed complex and entangled.

The root of this entanglement becomes clear as long as we compare Honor's market position with that of ZTE, ByteDance's previous hardware partner.

At the end of 2025, ZTE Nubia and ByteDance jointly developed and launched the first Doubao Phone (M153). Thanks to the disruptive experience of "AI full - automatic execution", this phone even triggered a premium and leasing frenzy in the second - hand market for a while.

The underlying logic for the two to come together is to "break the situation by leveraging each other's advantages". In the domestic mobile phone market with a strong Matthew effect, ZTE's market share is relatively low, and its brand influence is slightly weak.

This means that for ZTE, exchanging a certain degree of hardware sovereignty for ByteDance's powerful AI ecological empowerment is an excellent shortcut to gain more market share and achieve overtaking on a curve.

Under such logic, relatively weak brand manufacturers such as Transsion, Lenovo, and Meizu have been included in the list of potential partners. The market generally expects that these brands are more willing and more likely to exchange hardware sovereignty for an entry ticket to the AI era.

However, the situation Honor faces is completely different.

As a leading domestic manufacturer, Honor has spent several years and a huge amount of resources since its independence to establish itself in the high - end market in the fierce competition, building a deep brand premium and a large base of loyal users.

In other words, Honor itself is already a highly influential brand today, and it doesn't need to "rely on others" like weak brands.

Therefore, the potential concerns of this cooperation are magnified infinitely. Once the cooperation takes place, will the brand value that Honor has painstakingly built be seriously diluted?

If the jointly developed terminal is ultimately defined as a pure "Doubao Phone", then ByteDance's "Doubao" IP will dominate consumers' minds.

By then, Honor's proud brand halo will be greatly weakened, and it may even face the risk of becoming an "advanced hardware contract manufacturer" for Internet giants.

In contrast, this deal is obviously a sure - win situation for ByteDance, an excellent deal that can achieve a "1 + 1 > 2" leap - forward effect.

By allying with a leading manufacturer like Honor, the "Doubao Phone" may directly leverage Honor's mature supply - chain production capacity, strict quality - control standards, and extensive distribution network to enter the more mainstream flagship market.

From an industry - wide perspective, whether this cooperation can be realized has become an observation window for AI large models to reshape hardware, that is, between mobile phone hardware manufacturers and Internet AI giants, who will be the dominant player in the industrial chain.

Honor's current entanglement and hesitation are the strategic anxieties faced by all first - tier mobile phone manufacturers.

At this crossroads, will Honor stick to its brand bottom - line and seek an innovative cooperation model of "dual - core coexistence", or will it make compromises under ByteDance's attractive offers? The market is waiting for an answer.

This article is from the WeChat official account "All - Weather Technology" (ID: iawtmt), author: Zheng Minfang. Republished by 36Kr with permission.