Honor President George Zhao: Kuwait is one of our main markets and we value our target audience there

Honor President George Zhao during Honor 6X launch.

LAS VEGAS: Built for the cost-conscious yet uncompromising Internet-minded millennial, the Honor 6X is the perfect technological budget beast. It features an innovative dual-lens rear camera offering a wide aperture range (F/0.95-F/16) that gives all the latitude to unleash your creative potential. Embodying the "Double the Experience" motto that millennials live and breathe, the Honor 6X breaks new ground at CES 2017 with its premium dual-lens rear camera, extended battery life and rock-solid performance.

The main 12 MP camera of the Honor 6X dual lens rear camera is responsible for the composition of the image while the 2 MP camera helps to get depth of field information, resulting in beautiful shots that are sharp and crisp. Combined with the camera's wide aperture (F/0.95), the Honor 6X produces professional-looking background blur to make your subjects stand out. This, coupled with a 1.25um pixel size, enables the Honor 6X to capture quality shots even in low-light settings. The Honor 6X's camera uses Phase Detection Auto Focus technology, which allows for an ultra-fast camera focus speed of 0.3 seconds.

Fueled by Kirin 655 boasting an octa-core architecture, the Honor 6X is built to provide a glitch-free user experience. Kirin 655 packs four cores clocked at 2.1GHz and another four at 1.7 GHz. Supported by 3GB RAM and a powerful i5 co-processer, the Honor 6X allows you to seamlessly game, browse and listen to music or run multiple apps at the same time, it is also boasts an internal storage memory of 32GB.

Running on a powerful 3340 mAh battery, Honor 6X offers an exceptional battery life. With its 16nm CPU and power saving technology further reducing power consumption, the Honor 6X provides 2.15 days of usage and 1.54 days of heavy usage on a single full charge. On A single full charge, the Honor 6X allows you to enjoy up to 11.5 hours of video, 70 hours of music, or up to 8 hours of gaming.

Featuring a generous 5.5-inch full HD (1920 x 1080p) display, the ergonomically designed Honor 6X boasts a full metal slim body (8.2 mm thick) with 2.5-D glass on the front and curved panel on the back. The Honor 6X comes in three colors - gold, silver and grey. It has been available for purchase since January 5 in the Middle East including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc at a selling price of KD 75.

"Millennial smartphone users in the Middle East region have integrated the technology seamlessly in to every aspect of their life and are looking for a device that can match both their lifestyle and their pocket. With the honor 6x, we are bringing our consumers a device that is perfectly tailored to the desired experience for a digital native," said Chris Sun Baigong, Vice President Huawei honor Middle East CBG.

"Geared towards those unwilling to cut back on performance, Honor 6X is a device engineered with uncompromising excellence," said George Zhao, president of Honor. "Understanding the 'double or nothing' lifestyle of millennials, we designed Honor 6X with enough muscle power to allow them to share, explore, and enjoy life to the fullest."

Zhao spoke to Kuwait Times as part of a group interview at CES. Some excerpts:

Kuwait Times: How is Honor doing in the smartphone market?

George Zhao: We are the leading smartphone e-brand in the region and we pride ourselves in following an online and offline business model that caters to digital natives. Honor products are available through multiple sales channels enabling us to connect directly to our consumers and closely focus on users' needs and in developing superior products and services. Honor incorporates the ultimate tech innovations, with strong research and development capabilities that allow creation of the best products. Huawei Honor has access to 16 global R&D centers, 79,000 R&D staff and 50,377 total granted patents. The brand offers innovative high-quality, high-performance products and services at a more accessible price point than other brands.

KT: What is Honor's strategy to sell more products in the Middle East and Kuwait?

Zhao: Over the past two years since Honor was first launched, globally the brand has been growing at 100 percent year on year; a figure we are replicating in the Middle East market. We consider the Kuwait market to be one of our main markets and we value our target audience there, which is why we are always looking for ways to tailor our brand to cater to their needs.

Since the launch of Honor in this market in May 2015 with Honor 6 plus and subsequent Honor 4X, Honor 7, Honor 5x and the successful Honor 8 that is a reflection of beauty, sales in this region have grown exponentially. Honor 6 plus sold out in the first week on Souq.com, prompting Honor to ship more units to meet local demand. Our second device, the Honor 4X was launched on August 25 and broke sales records every day before selling out within a week. The Honor 4X actually smashed online sales records to become the fastest selling device sold on Souq.com ever.

The Honor 7, which was launched in October last year, is the number one smartphone in its price category online in the Middle East. Our latest flagship beauty also exceeded target sales at Gitex Shopper 2016, with Honor 8 being among the most sold out phones within its price category. This confirms our belief in working with our users to create technology that caters to their specific needs and have the perfect bundles to ensure happier and more satisfied users.

Also, at CES 2017 in Vegas there was an exciting announcement from the Huawei Honor family where yet another technological budget beast was launched, but this time it was about setting the standards even higher for the competition where the first mid-range dual camera smartphone was launched, the Honor 6X.

Millennial smartphone users in the Middle East region have integrated the technology seamlessly in to every aspect of their life and are looking for a device that can match both their lifestyle and their pocket. With the Honor 6X, we are bringing our consumers a device that is perfectly tailored to the desired experience for a digital native. Geared towards those unwilling to cut back on performance, Honor 6X is a device engineered with uncompromising excellence. Understanding the 'double or nothing' lifestyle of millennials, we designed Honor 6X with enough muscle power to allow them to share, explore, and enjoy life to the fullest

KT: People need to see and touch products. What is Honor's retail presence?

Zhao: Honor is available online on www.hihonor.com and also through all major retailers in the region

KT: Is there any plan to launch a new device in future?

Zhao: 2017 is going to be an exciting year for Honor. We are looking at breaking norms and showing our users that premium quality is now within their reach. In the Middle East we see great potential for our brand; this is particularly so due to the predominance of digital natives and high incidence of early adopters that impact the way in which we approach this highly sophisticated market. Honor 6X is the only mid-range phone with a dual camera in the ME region that is built for the cost-conscious yet uncompromising Internet-minded millennial.

By Islam Al-Sharaa