Hard Krypton Exclusive Interview | Li Jian from Honor: Launching a 9999-yuan gimbal smartphone amid the industry downturn
Author | Qiu Xiaofen
Editor | Yuan Silai
The Robot Phone is arguably the most high-stakes product Honor CEO Li Jian has overseen since he took office.
At the launch event on August 12, the camera on the back of the Honor Robot Phone slowly lifted and swayed along with the music. It also locked onto the shooting subject in front of it, following the person as they turned around constantly, just like a "robot head" mounted on the phone. For the first time, the camera that used to be fixed inside the phone's back panel was able to "move".
The Robot Phone is priced starting at 9,999 yuan. As Honor's first new-form factor product after the "Alpha Strategy", it is not only a high-end flagship phone that breaks the 10,000-yuan price point, but also a concentrated manifestation of Honor's vision for AI-powered smartphones.
In the long-silent smartphone track, this product brings a rare bright spot.
But its birth was accompanied by twists and turbulence. During the one-and-a-half-hour communication with media outlets including Hard Krypton, Li Jian mentioned "pressure" 18 times and "difficulty" 12 times.
Over the past year, memory costs have risen, and the global mobile phone market has shrunk by more than 10% — roughly equivalent to wiping out the full market share of a large mobile phone company. In this harsh environment, Honor still needs to explore its second growth curve, launch a heavyweight product, and regain its seat at the table.
"If I use a painting to describe Honor's current state, I think it is like an eagle preparing to take off that has encountered a violent storm, and is now in a critical stage." Li Jian told Hard Krypton.
Even if the senior management team themselves "all had lingering doubts", Honor had no choice but to go down the most difficult path.
The Robot Phone poses extremely high engineering difficulty. The smartphone body is already full of chips, batteries, lenses and heat dissipation systems, yet the Robot Phone also needs to fit a mechanical system composed of more than 100 precision parts, while keeping the body thickness within the limit of 9mm and the weight at 248g.
To achieve this, Honor adjusted the industrial design and internal architecture for more than ten versions, spent more than half a year on the work, and introduced brand new material solutions such as titanium alloy and shield steel, finally reducing the total weight of the motor to 2.6g — roughly the weight of half a sheet of A4 paper.
Besides making the gimbal smaller and lighter, it also needs to be durable.
On the Robot Phone, there are 68 cables in total between the gimbal and the motherboard, 19 of which are coaxial cables. These cables not only have to fit into the limited body space, but also withstand the repeated lifting, lowering and rotation of the gimbal. Most notably, as a daily-use smartphone, it also needs to pass the extremely rigorous drop and tumble tests before leaving the factory, which is a completely different level of difficulty compared to independent handheld gimbal products.
A bigger problem emerged one or two months before the launch.
Fang Fei, President of Honor Product Line, told Hard Krypton that at that time, the team found that the service life of the flip mechanism could only reach about one year, which was significantly shorter than the normal service cycle of a smartphone.
But the Robot Phone was a product that could not fail. "We were under huge pressure. Even one month before the launch, our senior management was still asking how the project was progressing. The AI capability, imaging capability and design level all converge on the Robot Phone." Li Jian said.
(Image source / Enterprise)
Within just one week after that, Honor tested 18 material solutions, and coordinated teams covering materials, processing, modules, complete machines and R&D to tackle the problem together, finally extending the design service life to five years.
After such rigorous testing and polishing, the Robot Phone has outstanding selling points, and is clearly differentiated from both gimbal cameras and ordinary smartphones.
In terms of imaging, Honor cooperated with ARRI, the German photographic equipment manufacturer, to introduce a variety of professional imaging functions (ARRI LogC3 curve, false color monitoring, peak focusing, etc.) to meet the needs of professional creators.
In terms of AI, Honor has in-depth cooperation with Alibaba's Tongyi Qianwen large model. The Robot Phone is also equipped with a system-level agent architecture, which can combine images, sounds and gestures to understand users and the surrounding environment, and complete planning and execution. Li Jian's judgment on the next generation of smartphones is that mobile phones will evolve from "containers for applications" to "carriers for intelligent agents", and AI will no longer be limited to a chat box, but jump out of the screen to give feedback to the real world.
In fact, choosing to launch a product with a complex structure, high investment and unproven market at this moment is by no means an easy decision for Honor. However, Honor has delivered an impressive result: pre-orders exceeded 400,000 units, and the product sold out across all e-commerce platforms within one minute after going on sale.
In addition, Li Jian revealed in the interview that the upcoming flagship new phone Magic9 to be released on September 28 will fully carry forward the AI, imaging and underlying computing power technologies accumulated by the Robot Phone, achieving a leapfrog improvement in flagship product strength, making it the generation with the most upgrades and the biggest changes in all Magic series.
"What people fear most is prejudice. I hope everyone can let go of their old impressions of Honor and turn to a brand new page." Li Jian expressed this expectation.
The following is an excerpt from the exchange between Hard Krypton, Li Jian and Fang Fei, President of Honor Product Line (slightly edited)
Hard Krypton: How do you understand Honor's current development status?
Li Jian: If I use a painting to describe Honor's current state, I think it is like an eagle preparing to take off that has encountered a violent storm, and is now in the critical stage of "breaking through adversity and gaining new life amid storms".
At present, two forces are converging. One is the downward pressure: the global memory supply is tight, the consumer electronics industry is under pressure, and the global mobile phone market has shrunk by more than 10%; at the same time, affected by the special historical background, the competitive pressure Honor faces is also more prominent.
The other is the upward force. Since Honor launched its strategic adjustment, its technology, industry and ecology are all in a process of rapid upward development.
It's just like a ship that is easy to wobble when hit by two opposite forces. When it wobbles, people on board will feel dizzy and can't figure out the status, but I think it's okay. An enterprise can never become great without going through hardships. We are grateful for the pressure from the memory industry and the pressure from competition in this era, which will instead temper Honor's strong team.
Hard Krypton: Since mobile phone manufacturers are currently in a relatively difficult stage, why did Honor choose such a forward-looking project as the Robot Phone?
Fang Fei: The Robot Phone originally came from our thinking about the form of mobile imaging. As video recording becomes more and more common, we hope to combine the gimbal with the mobile phone, but the real difficulty is: how to fit the gimbal into a small-sized mobile phone while ensuring comfortable grip and portability.
To achieve this, our team carried out more than a dozen rounds of adjustments to the industrial design and internal architecture. The polishing of the coordination between ID design and architecture design alone had more than ten versions, and we spent more than half a year working on this matter. Later, solutions such as titanium alloy, shield steel and customized motors were all introduced to solve the problems of space, strength and reliability.
There are dozens of cables inside the gimbal, and it also needs to realize three-axis movement and TOF perception, making the structure very complex. But one or two months before the launch, we found that the service life of the flip mechanism could only reach about one year.
So our team tested 18 material solutions within a week, and coordinated the teams of materials, processing, modules, complete machines, R&D, procurement, supply and delivery to solve the problem together, finally extending the design service life to five years.
In fact, after the Alpha Strategy was proposed, we needed to redefine the product direction of Honor smartphones. From April to June last year, we clearly combined AI multi-modality, embodied intelligence and imaging, and positioned the Robot Phone as an embodied intelligent AI imaging smartphone.
But at that time, several of our senior management members all had lingering doubts. However, we believe that uncertainty also represents opportunity. We must go for something that we can reach only by jumping up, not something that we can make easily while lying down.
Hard Krypton: Under the pressure of the global consumer electronics market, how do you view Honor's performance in the global market in the first half of the year? What is the situation in the overseas market and the Chinese market respectively?
Li Jian: In the first half of this year, Honor's global sales volume increased by 9% and revenue increased by 11%, making it one of the fastest-growing brands among Android manufacturers.
Looking at the Chinese market, we performed well in the first quarter, but were affected by price increases in the second quarter. Currently our market share exceeds 10%. The data may not sound that impressive, but the China regional market is stabilizing and rebounding. According to BCI data, Honor was the only manufacturer in the Chinese market that recorded positive month-on-month growth in July, and the manufacturer with the largest increase in market share, ranking back to fourth in the domestic market.
Looking at the overseas market, in the first half of this year, Honor's overseas sales volume increased by 20% and revenue increased by 26%. Among the key overseas markets that Honor has entered, there are more than ten countries where our market share exceeds 10%.
Let me share a set of data:
Revenue in the Latin American market increased by about 15%, of which Mexico increased by 67% — Mexico is a very difficult market to operate in;
Our market share in the Middle East ranks second, only after Samsung; in Saudi Arabia, our mobile phones rank second and tablets rank first;
In the Southeast Asian market, our market share in Malaysia ranks first, surpassing Apple and Samsung;
The European market achieved a growth of more than 60% in the first half of the year, and the full-scenario business including AIoT grew by 98%.
Overall, we are performing exceptionally well overseas, while the domestic market is under pressure, but it is also rebounding.
In addition, Honor's overseas business growth also shows structural changes: full-scenario and AIoT products grew by 98%. Previously, the online business overseas did not perform well, but now online growth is close to 100%.
In terms of price segments, due to the rise in memory prices, our mobile phone shipments in the 400 USD to 800 USD price segment increased by 425% — a 4.2x growth in such a difficult first half of the year.
Hard Krypton: Could you share what the future development direction of AI smartphones will look like?
Fang Fei: The Robot Phone represents one of our explorations of AI smartphones. We judge that in the past, mobile phones were containers for applications, but in the future they will become "stages for intelligent agents", which can understand human intentions, help users make plans and complete tasks.
AI smartphones will also actively provide services according to users' habits and scenarios. This will bring about changes in the OS, service modes and application modes.
In addition, AI cannot only stay at the software level, but also needs to be combined with specific products. For example, office-oriented AI can be more widely used on large-screen devices, imaging-oriented AI can help users shoot and create, and game-oriented AI can be combined with high-performance mobile phones to enhance the experience.
But to achieve this, the key is to let the device have long-term memory of the user and continuously understand the changes in the user's behavior. At the same time, AI needs to run locally on the mobile phone and also use cloud capabilities — local processing is fast and low-cost, while the cloud can complete more complex tasks.
I think this kind of change will not only happen on mobile phones, but also on PCs, tablets, glasses and other wearable devices, and new product forms may also emerge. In the past, we mainly relied on touch screen operations, but in the future, interaction methods such as voice and gestures will become more and more common.
At the same time, a unified center may appear in the home scenario to manage the data, content and computing power in mobile phones and other devices, so that when users switch between different devices, the service can continue. The problem that has not been fully solved now is how devices and AI from different brands can cooperate with each other.
Hard Krypton: What technologies are shared between the Robot Phone, humanoid robots and Honor's other mobile phone products?
Li Jian: Humanoid robots, the Robot Phone and many technologies do share the same technical stack. Because mobile phones themselves have the characteristics of high reliability and strong communication capabilities, including battery life. Few people in the industry know that Honor can manufacture the batteries for robots by ourselves, and we have a real battery production line.
Some unmanned control technologies used in humanoid robots, including motors, high-strength lightweight materials, simulation technologies, as well as multimedia interaction, imaging interaction, human-computer interaction and voice interaction in the development of humanoid robots, can all be shared and ported to the mobile phone platform. This technology base is highly compatible with humanoid robots.
Hard Krypton: Some competitors are currently making independent gimbal camera products. When the Robot Phone was under development, did you ever consider making an independent form factor? Why must it be integrated into a mobile phone?
Li Jian: When we were developing the Robot Phone, we really did not consider making an independent gimbal product, because we expected to find a form factor that can not only demonstrate Honor's imaging capabilities, but also demonstrate Honor's AI capabilities.
I never think that the Robot Phone is just a pure imaging mobile phone. We have gone to great lengths to develop the AI interaction with people, and this is just the beginning. We want AI to step out of the screen, and there are a lot of things to imagine afterwards.
When this form factor comes out, we must set the benchmark high. We were under huge pressure. Even one month before the launch, our senior management was still asking how the project was progressing. The AI capability, imaging capability and design level all converge on the Robot Phone.
Hard Krypton: The Robot Phone is an all-inclusive product that integrates all of Honor's innovations in AI, imaging and hardware. How will the Magic9 inherit the technical exploration of the Robot Phone?
Li Jian: The AI capability in Magic9 will far exceed the capabilities of all other terminal manufacturers. At the same time, we are also working hard to improve AI capabilities and imaging capabilities, and the Agentic OS will also have a brand new attempt on Magic9.
Although the new form factor will have some shortcomings, I believe that under a mature form factor, the Magic9 will make people feel that it is worth waiting for. What people fear most is prejudice. I hope everyone can let go of their old impressions of Honor and turn to a brand new page.
Homepage image source | Provided by the enterprise
Typesetting | Fan Xinya
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