Honor phones may be breakthrough for HarmonyOS: analyst

Honor is set to launch its first flagship smartphone 50 series since its separation from Huawei on Wednesday. The new handsets – with chips from Qualcomm back in place – have already attracted 1.1 million online reservations.

As the only smartphone brand that's officially announced it will use Huawei's self- developed HarmonyOS on its phones, this may also serve as a starting point for the wider application of the HarmonyOS, analysts said.

According to media reports, the flagship will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 778G processor, feature 100W fast charging, and come with a “hypercurved screen.” Images released by Honor, which focus on the rear of the phone, show a design with circular camera bumps.

Market response has been enthusiastic. The total number of reservations for the Honor 50 series on domestic e- commerce news site JD. com and Honor Mall has reached 1.12 million, a report from chnfund. com said on Monday.

Since its split from Huawei, which is still struggling with the US chip ban, Honor has resumed cooperation with all suppliers, including Qualcomm, Micron, MediaTek, Samsung, Microsoft and Intel, the company confirmed with the Global Times in January. It has also recently denied media reports saying it had not received authorization from Google's Android.

Honor CEO Zhao Ming said in an interview in May that April was the darkest moment for Honor, and it would gradually recover from May. Starting from June, Honor's chip supply would be fully restored, Zhao said at the time. He also said that Honor's market share fell to 3 percent at its lowest point but recovered to 8 percent in May.

Honor's rise will be surely a boon for the HarmonyOS, since increasing market share also means Harmony will have more potential users, Xiang Ligang, director- general of the Beijingbased Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times on Monday.

The development of the HarmonyOS, especially in terms of consumers' feedback, was already better than expected during recent days, Xiang added.