Honor Plans to Foray Into Indian PC Market With MagicBook Laptop Launch in 2020

Honor will also release its Honor 9X smartphone in the country next year with Google apps.

By Press Trust of India | Updated: 24 December 2019 15:14 IST

Honor Plans to Foray Into Indian PC Market With MagicBook Laptop Launch in 2020

Honor is using hardware and software of US companies that have been given exemption

Highlights

We will launch two laptops in India in 2020: Honor official
Honor MagicBook comes with chipsets of Intel and AMD
Honor has not been able to use GMS suite for its new smartphones

Chinese handset maker Honor on Tuesday said it will foray into India PC market, with two laptops built on Windows platform, in the first quarter of 2020. Honor MagicBook laptop comes with chipsets of US companies -- Intel and AMD.

"We will launch two laptops in India in 2020. We have restarted working with Microsoft. They have licensed our products," Honor President for Overseas marketing and Sales, James Zou told reporters in Shenzhen, China.

While he did not disclose exact dates for the launch, a company note said that the laptops with AMD processor will be launched globally, including in India, in the first quarter of 2020.

Zou said that the company plans to expand product portfolio in India in 2020 which besides personal computers will include launch of a new television on its own operating system Harmony OS, smartwatch, and new smartphones starting with Honor 9X that will support storage capacity of 512GB.

The company is using hardware and software of US companies that have been given exemption to supply their products to Huawei, the parent company of Honor.

Honor has not been able to use Google Mobile Services (GMS) suite for its new smartphones due to restrictions imposed on it by the US government and has therefore developed its own suite and also operating system to mitigate impact of the ban. Honor 9X, however, will come with GMS.

Zou said that situation is difficult for the company but it has also opened up opportunity for the company.

"In 2020, we will focus on building new partnerships in India. By end of this year, we will launch 24 kits (software tools for app development) that will help developers migrate their app from GMS to HMS. By integrating app on HMS, Indian app developers can have access to one world's biggest market China," Zou said.

The company is also in talks with Nokia and TomTom to bring their maps application on HMS.

"China lacks Google ecosystem. Many apps are available without GMS code. Building HMS will take time but not impossible. People at the most need 300 app for daily use. We need to focus on daily use apps. It is not difficult," Zou said.

Huawei, including Honor, was the second largest global smartphone brand in terms of shipment with over 18 percent market share. However, it is estimated to have around 3 percent share in India.

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