Chinese smartphone company Honor unveiled new AI features on Wednesday. Pictured here is CEO George Zhao speaking in Shanghai on June 26, 2024.
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Honor, a Huawei spinoff that focuses on higher-end devices, revealed on Wednesday that the latest version of its Android-based Magic operating system would focus on AI as an assistant.
A company demonstration showed how even with a vague voice command (such as “I’m tired, order something”) the phone could automatically order coffee without the user having to touch the device. It used AI to mimic actions on a touchscreen. Human intervention was only required to complete the payment.
The AI assistant can also identify and send documents to contacts, or make calls via social media app WeChat, all without the user having to touch the phone.
Honor is cooperating for devices in China Baidu and other Chinese companies for some AI features, while developing others themselves. Honor has partnered with Google for devices sold abroad.
The new AI features are scheduled to be released on Honor’s upcoming Magic 7 smartphone, which will be launched on October 30. Honor plans to roll out AI capabilities to all its devices by the first few months of next year.
The Magic 7 will use Qualcomm‘S newly announced Snapdragon Elite 8 chip for telephones. Honor had teased its new AI features at the chipmaker’s annual event on Monday.
Chinese home appliance and smartphone company Xiaomi will also launch a new phone this month that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite 8 chip. Xiaomi has been less vocal about its AI features for smartphones.
Its AI features have risen to a new level, Toby Zhu, senior analyst at Canalys, said in a phone interview Wednesday after the Honor event. He said the new features have greater potential to convince consumers to switch devices.
“Apple faces challenges in China, but according to our data it will not face a significant decline,” he said in Mandarin, as translated by CNBC.
Apple’s declining sales in China
Honor, Xiaomi and Huawei have all launched foldable products, a category that Apple has yet to enter.
About 17% of Apple’s revenue came from Greater China in the quarter ended June 29. That is down from 19% in the same period a year ago. Apple will announce quarterly results on October 31 local time.
Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong on Wednesday to discuss data security and cloud services. according to the ministry. Apple did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Since its launch on September 20, Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max has fallen slightly in value on second-hand shopping platform Xianyu. The device sold for between 8,000 Chinese yuan ($1,122) and 10,000 yuan on Wednesday, compared with 10,500 yuan to 16,300 yuan last month.
Huawei had launched its tri-fold Mate XT the same day. As of Wednesday, second-hand prices for the device had fallen to the mid-20,000 yuan range, almost half the price it sold for on September 20.
— CNBC’s Dylan Butts and Sonia Heng contributed to this report.