This year, terms like "high-quality development" and "new productivity" have been trending, encompassing everything from heavy industry to smart devices, serving as tangible embodiments of these concepts.
Take our most commonly used device, the smartphone, for example. Representing the pinnacle of China's manufacturing capabilities, intelligent smartphones are leveraging collaborative innovation to fully unleash the advantages of China's industrial chain. By joining forces with upstream enterprises, they are accelerating their journey towards global prominence, aiming to surpass international giants.
On March 12th, CCTV's flagship program "Focus Interview" aired an episode titled "Gathering Chains, Leading Innovation," shining a spotlight on Honor, which recently won the "Oscars of the tech world" at MWC 2024, revealing the secrets behind the high-quality development of the high-tech manufacturing industry.
According to the program, Honor, starting from its own technological innovation, efficiently drives and collaborates with upstream and downstream enterprises, continuously innovating and breaking through in areas such as foldable screens, batteries, and displays, vividly illustrating a picture of leading companies driving open innovation, resonating with China's industrial chain, and global innovation.
In recent years, the sales of foldable screen smartphones in China have continued to grow, seen as a compass for future innovation and development in the mobile phone industry. The primary technical challenge and pain point for popularization is the issue of thickness. In less than five years, Chinese brands represented by Honor have continuously pushed the limits, reducing the thickness of foldable smartphones from an initial 17 millimeters to 9.9 millimeters, completely solving the problem of heaviness and poor user portability experience of foldable screens.
"Why are we so fixated on this 1 millimeter? Because this 1 millimeter signifies the real experience for consumers," said Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, firmly in the program.
Unlike regular flat-screen phones, foldable phones demand higher requirements for the stacking of screen components and internal components of the body. Today, even reducing the thickness of foldable phones by 0.1 millimeters is an ultimate test for research and production capabilities.
"Reducing it by 0.1 millimeters requires the entire reconstruction of the original phone, such as the screen module, the chip for driving, and the components that are too tall to fit into such a thin foldable screen. Take the battery, for example. The battery of a regular phone is usually 4-5 millimeters thick on one side alone, making it impossible to fit into a foldable screen."
How to break through the battery technology bottleneck and become a key player in the innovation of foldable screens? At this juncture, a battery company with a decade of incubated relevant technology has caught the attention of Honor. Due to the lack of downstream terminal products to carry, they have been unable to mass-produce this technology for the consumer market. Meanwhile, Honor is on the lookout for new breakthroughs in battery materials to ensure the smooth landing of ultra-thin foldable screen smartphone designs. The alignment of these two needs sets the stage for a mutual journey between an upstream enterprise and a key player in the supply chain.
Through joint R&D efforts, they introduced silicon-carbon anode materials technology and produced the ultra-thin Qinghai Lake battery, with a thickness of only 2.72 millimeters and a capacity of 5000 milliampere-hours. This collaborative innovation across the industry chain not only helps smartphone manufacturers overcome technical bottlenecks but also provides suppliers with new development momentum.
Not only the battery, but also the core components such as the screen, hinge, axis cover, etc., used in Honor's foldable screen phones, as well as eye protection technology, communication technology, etc., are all the fruitful results of its collaboration with domestic upstream and downstream industries. In addition, Honor will also share a series of co-created technological achievements with the industry chain, radiating to more mobile phone manufacturers, benefiting more consumers.
For example, to meet the eye protection needs of users during the use of mobile phones, Honor has invested billions over the past three years and jointly developed the "Oasis Eye Protection Screen" with industry-academia-research partners, triggering follow-ups from major mobile phone manufacturers. Similarly, to address the three core problems and pain points of large antenna volume, short call endurance, and poor communication experience in mobile satellite communication, Honor has devoted itself to innovation and collaborated with the industry chain to develop the "smaller volume, faster connection, lower power consumption" Hongyan communication technology, promoting domestic mobile phones into the era of satellite communication.
At the recently concluded 2024 Mobile World Congress (MWC), Honor emerged as the standout star, earning widespread acclaim for its commitment to open innovation and exploration of future industry directions. The Honor Magic V2 RSR, featuring Porsche Design, clinched the prestigious "Best Product Award" at the event, being the sole recipient of the GLOMO Best in Show accolade. Additionally, Honor bagged an impressive total of 45 awards during the conference, reaffirming its position as a leader in the industry.
From Honor's approach to inspiring industry chain advantages through collaborative innovation, it's evident that they differ from the prevailing trend in the industry, which focuses on opportunism and short-term gains through "innovation monetization." Instead, Honor has chosen a forward-looking path of "innovation leadership," envisioning tomorrow from today and continuously driving the ascent of the domestic industry value chain.
As Zhao Ming puts it, "Honor hopes to lead industry innovation direction by understanding consumers and having insights into the future, using a global perspective and capabilities to resonate Chinese industry chains with global innovation, thus leading the future of Chinese smartphones globally."
On this path of "innovation leadership," Honor has never stopped moving forward. At the upcoming Honor Spring Flagship Product Launch on March 18, Honor will also debut the industry's first automotive-grade LOFIC technology, bringing a brand-new upgrade with single-lens reflex-level ultra-dynamic eagle-eyed camera. Let's look forward to the official debut of the Honor Magic6 Supreme Edition and the Honor Magic6 RSR Porsche Design!
