Huawei Honor's rising as one of fastest Growing smartphone brand in India

Honor the sub brand from Huawei no longer needs introduction in smartphones world. Honor has made a name for itself in mid-range priced devices. The devices from the brand has brought premium quality devices with latest innovations to Indian market across the price spectrum. With innovative and best in segment products like Honor 7X, Honor View 10, Honor 9 Lite; Honor has shown momentum and growth in the India market.

Huawei witnessed a massive overall growth of 165% in CY 2017 as per Counterpoint, Q4 2017 report. While Huawei focused on wearable devices, it was Honor that played an instrumental role in brand building, and launched global best sellers that became India best sellers. The budget bestseller smartphone, Honor 7X was pivotal in the growth of the brand towards Q4, 2017.

Further, the launch of Honor View 10 and Honor 9 Lite has paved the way for greater recognition of the brand in India, thereby, reinforcing its global leadership. Honor 9 Lite has been a sold out all four times on Flipkart making it one of the most popular Honor smartphone to date.

We talked earlier about rise of OPPO as one of top brands globally, Honor seems to have followed the suite as well as learnt from the mistake of former. OPPO which has seen a phenomenal rise in its market share in 2016, is now slipping from its place. One of the reason for this drop is said to be lack of options in different price segment. Honor has filled this gap with its balanced distribution of devices from Honor6x to Honor View10. 

Another important factor for this rise in country is company's commitment to provide India with Global Best Price which is evident from one of latest launch Honor View 10 which is priced at Rs 29,999/- while it was launched for Euro 499 in European markets which turns out to be around INR 38,000/- .

Honor is the first smartphone brand in India to introduce Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven smartphone, Honor View 10 at very pocket friendly cost, in line with brand’s commitment towards the Indian market. The launch of Honor View 10 marked the beginning of a new AI era, making consumers shift from the smartphones to “Intelligent phones. The latest offerings from Honor, Honor 9 Lite and Honor 7X have reshaped the budget smartphone category in the Indian smartphone market, owing to competitive hardware and software features, and have been termed as best budget smartphones by media critics.

Huawei, well known for its excellent R&D, brings out the best innovations in every offering. It invents consumer-centric technology that not only enhances the overall performance of the device but also creates brand loyalty amongst its consumers. Honor has been on a high success streak in 2017 with in-house premium technology and constant innovation.

While there is a lot of stress on innovation and listening to voice of customers , marketing team of Honor has also done commendable job with organizing events in different cities, educating the dealers, partnering with e-retailers etc to keep the ball rolling. The man we know behind all this is Mr P Sanjeev, VP Sales, Huawei Consumer Business group. The team deserves a pat on back to have achieve staggering growth in neck to neck competition. 

In one of the event, the team has announced its ambition to capture 10% of smartphone market share in India by 2019, the task might look tough seeing number of brands (competitive) in the arena. However, the growth rate achieved by Honor has left behind the likes of Xiaomi and OPPO makes it look achievable if they manage to be on the right track and get ahead of competition in making use of available technology if not innovate on its own for all devices.

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Honor 9 Lite Sold Out in 120 Seconds in 3rd Flash Sale on 23rd January

The most loved and admired budget smartphone from Honor’s portfolio, Honor 9 Lite was yet again sold out on 23rd Jan in just 120 seconds during the 3^rd flash sale on Flipkart. Continuing success owing to overwhelming consumer response has catapulated Honor 9 Lite to become the best selling smartphone on Flipkart.

It was just a day before when Honor had announced that the elegant looking smartphone,  Honor 9 Lite in its first sale on 21^st January midnight has set a series of sale record on Flipkart.com. On 23rd Jan, the new smartphone was sold out in just 6 minutes in the first flash sale and to ensure Indian consumers get their hands on the device, Honor had extended the sale with a second flash sale till 12 PM on 21^st January, which also got sold out in 3 minutes.

“We are seeing terrific response and would like to thank our consumers for such great support for Honor 9 Lite. All three flash sales have been sold out in just few minutes, making Honor 9 Lie the best selling product on Flipkart. We are confident that Honor 9 Lite will continue to add to Honor’s momemtum.” Said Mr. P Sanjeev, Vice President, Sales, Huawei Consumer Business Group

The Honor 9 Lite is a 5.65-inch smartphone with a 18:9 IPS display, designed with dual cameras on both the front and rear, and runs on Android 8.0 Oreo with EMUI 8.0. The quad-camera smartphone that delivers unparalleled images for the selfie-lovers, will be available at an extremely competitive price point of INR 10,999 for the 32 GB variant and INR 14,999 for the 64 GB variant. Honor is an industry leader in its creation of reasonable value products, combining top-end quality and performance at a highly competitive price point. Compared to other smartphones in the same price bracket, the Honor 9 Lite leads the way in combining value with the all-important wider screen, bezel-less display and a series of high-end features; from the premium double-sided 2.5D glass unibody, 13MP quad-lens camera, a 3000 mAh long-lasting battery with unmatched durability and quality.

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ASUS ranked as one Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies for the Computers category

• ASUS receives Fortune's World’s Most Admired Companies ranking for the Computers category
• Fortune conducted a worldwide survey of 1500 candidates and selected ASUS as one of the leading companies
• This is the third time ASUS has been recognized with honors from Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies survey

ASUS today announced its honourable recognition as one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies. The company has been ranked as a leading enterprise in the Computers category, reaffirming its leading position in the industry as a strong brand that continues to deliver excellent products and services.

Survey Method:

Fortune collaborated with its partner Korn Ferry on this survey of corporate reputation. Beginning with a universe of about 1500 candidates, the 1000 largest US companies were ranked by revenue, along with non-US companies in Fortune's Global 500 database that have revenues of $10 billion or more. The highest-revenue companies in each industry were then selected, totalling 680 in 29 countries. The top-rated companies were picked from that pool of 680; the executives who voted work at the companies in that group.

To determine the best-regarded companies in 52 industries, Korn Ferry asked executives, directors, and analysts to rate enterprises in their own industry on nine criteria, from investment value and quality of management and products to social responsibility and ability to attract talent. A company’s score must rank in the top half of its industry survey to be listed.

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Infocus offers upto INR 3000 discount at Amazon's Great Indian Sale

Infocus has announced upto INR 3000 discount on the entire smartphone portfolio for its customers. It will be exclusively available at the Amazon Great Indian Sale, starting 21^st January till 24^th January, 2018.  Making it special for Amazon Prime users, InFocus is providing them early access to InFocus Vision 3 starting 20^th January, 2018, 12 noon onwards.

InFocus smartphones Turbo 5 (2+16 & 3+32), Turbo 5 Plus and Snap 4 will have discount upto 3000INR, the recently launched, InFocus Vision 3, an extremely impressive edition priced at INR 6,999/- will now be available at an exchange offer- Extra INR 1000/- off.

Commenting on the offers, Dr. Luo Zhongsheng, Global CEO for Sharp & InFocus said, “We have had a very successful start to 2018 with Amazon India. The amazing user response received on the platform has further strengthen our exclusive partnership. To keep the excitement going, we have announced several offers on our entire smartphone portfolio. We are really thankful to our fans for this exceptional response and are confident that InFocus will continue to win more hearts with its upcoming products.”

The Turbo 5 focuses on reliability and performance packs as the device has battery life of 5000 mAh offering an incredible 34 days of standby time. The smartphone can also be used as a power bank due to its reverse charging option.

InFocus Turbo 5 Plus flaunts a 13MP AF and 5MP dual rear camera with Digital Zoom and a 5MP selfie camera and is backed with a 4850mAh battery which lasts upto 34 days of standby time. While InFocus Snap 4 comes equipped with 4 cameras; 13MP AF with 8MP dual rear camera with LED Flash Light.

The recently launched Vision 3 flaunts a 5.7 inch 18:9 HD High-resolution Large Screen ONCELL display and allows consumers to click ‘Dualfie’, where the screen allows the photos from both front and rear cameras to be displayed on it simultaneously. The smartphone comes with 13 MP AZ and 5 MP 120° Wide-angle rear camera and the 8MP front camera that comes loaded with beauty features and allows upto 7 levels of beauty modification.

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ASUS Zenfone Zoom S Review

ASUS Zenfone series phones are spread across the spectrum of smarphone scores. Few of the initial devices were breakthrough in their respective segment (Zenfone5, Zenfone2, Zenfone 4.5 etc) , some of the devices didn't worked out for the brand (ASUS Zenfone Selfie, ASUS Zenfone 4 Selfie pro). 

In 3 years, ASUS has worked a lot in terms of the device's design language, features, bloat wares etc. ASUS Zenfone Zoom  was result of these efforts that brought 3X zoom in a phone. The device was a bit bulky and lacked in few aspects. ASUS Zenfone Zoom S overcomes most of these hiccups but is it still good enough to compete with other flagships? Let's find out.

Build and Design:

ASUS Zenfone Zoom S is comes with a metallic unibody as is the norm now a days for mid-range and premium smartphones. The device sports a 5.5 inch display and is rounded from the edges which makes it quite ergonomic to hold the edges, however it feels slippery from the back as is the case with most of the metallic back phones. 

Volume rockers and power button are placed on right edge of the phone which works as expected and placed well within reach when phone is held in one hand. 

On top there is nothing but a noise cancellation mic, while on the bottom the device sports speaker grill, USB Type C slot, and 3.5 mm audio jack. On the left edge there is a hybrid SIM tray. 

Turning the phone towards back , Finger print sensor is placed on the back as most of other phones from the company, sensor was fast and accurate during our usage. Dual cameras sit on the top left of the phone supported by dual LED flash lights. Towards the bottom ASUS branding can be seen engraved center aligned to the horizontal width.

Bottom Edge

Rear View

Camera:

As the name suggests ASUS Zenfone Zoom S camera comes with optical zoom capability (2.3X), there are many implementations of dual camera setup which includes RGB+Monochrome, Depth+Auto, ASUS has implemented secondary camera for zoom which adds 2.3x zoom. Both rear cameras are 12MP cameras. The primary camera comes with SONY IMX362 sensor with f/1.7 aperture. The camera also comes with 4-axis OIS, dual pixel autofocus.

Camera no doubt is the highlight of the phone, Auto mode works well for most of  the situations, the images captured are crisp and clear. Phone works well in low light, optical zoom upto 2.3x works fine which can be further zoomed upto 12x digitally however zooming in digitally doesn't work really well. Secondary camera enables you to take portrait shots as well. Below are few of the shots taken by the phone.

Auto Mode

Night Mode

Auto Mode

HDR Mode

Artificial Light (Auto Mode)

Artificial Light (Auto Mode)

 Display and UI:

5.5 inch AMOLED display is good and bright, which can be viewed from different angles and in sunlight as well. There is a blue light filter as well which can be activated when you are reading at night. 

On the UI part, ASUS has done a good job in removing the infamous bloat-wares from the device and there are fewer applications pre-installed on the phone. The phone is running on ASUS Zen UI based on Android 7.0 Nougat. There are still few apps which can irritate the users as there is no option to un-install them however these can be disabled. 

Performance:

The phone runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset which is proven in many flagship devices, the processor is supported by 4 GB of RAM. We didn't faced any issues while using the phone in terms of performance. The phone is quite responsive when multitasking or putting it through resource intensive tasks. In our usage the device didn't get heated while playing light games for more than 15 minutes however in resource intensive games as NFS, Injustice 2 etc the temperature rises a bit. Good thing is it doesn't become unbearable while playing.

Bottom line:

The ASUS Zenfone Zoom S is priced at 25,999/- as of now on Flipkart. The camera of the device is quite impressive along with performance and battery backup. However when looked at its massive 5000 mAH battery, it seems like its a feat to put a battery of that size into a slim device. Overall the device is one of the best Zenfones from the company.

Having said that if you are looking for a decent device with focus on Camera, recently launched Honor View 10 looks more promising with price of 4K more than ASUS Zenfone Zoom S.

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