Last Sunday, March 2, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Honor pledged to invest $10 billion in artificial intelligence and announced the deepening of the Google partnership, which is related to the company’s desire to bolster its market share overseas.
The firm said that the investment plan, revealed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, aims to transform the brand from a maker of phones into a machine intelligence device ecosystem company.
In a sense, Honor can be called an upstart in the smartphone world. This unspoken status is relevant in the context of spinning off from Huawei in 2020 when the technology giant was hit with sanctions from the United States. Since then, Honor has been striving to expand beyond China and push into the higher-end part of the market, where Apple and Samsung are the main players.
It is worth noting that the company has already achieved some success. In this context, it is worth mentioning that the firm has developed several innovative devices, including foldable phones. At the same time, the company remains a small player on a global level. IDC data shows that Honor’s market share outside China was 2.3% in 2024. In 2023, the corresponding figure was recorded at the 1.7% mark.
An Honor spokesperson stated in a media comment that the announced investments would go towards putting artificial intelligence into hardware and the next generation of AI agents. Part of the funds will also be used to develop the platform for a wide range of machine intelligence devices. Moreover, a small portion of the investment is designed to prepare for the era of artificial general intelligence, which is expected to be smarter than humans.
Honor also reported that it is currently working with Google and chip developer Qualcomm on the elaborating of its AI agent. Moreover, the company uses Google Gemini, an artificial intelligence system, for AI features on its latest devices.
As we have reported earlier, Oppo Launches $1,870 Folding Phone.
