Honor plans to introduce a diversified products portfolio, which will include internet of things (IOT-enabled) devices in South Africa, during the second half of this financial year.

By Simnikiwe Mzekandaba, IT-Web

The Chinese smartphone brand earlier this year told ITWeb its plans to offer IOT-related services and solutions beyond phone devices, but no specific timeframes were shared.

Honor has noted its portfolio of IOT device management solutions includes full-scenario IOT products, such as wearables, headsets, smart screens, laptops, tablets, routers and accessories.

At this week’s Middle East and Africa launch of the Honor 90 5G and Honor 90 Lite smartphones in Dubai, the company revealed it will start with wearables, headsets and tablets in South Africa.

Honor SA’s Fred Zhou told media: “Our strategy for the next half of the year is to bring our whole ecosystem to South African consumers. In quarters three and four, you will see there will be more Honor IOT products.

“The wearables, we will launch in quarter three, and tablets and laptops in quarter four. We want to provide a whole solution to consumers and end-users; we want to be a ‘one-stop’ solutions provider.”

Frost & Sullivan estimates there were 35.37 billion IOT devices globally last year. The market research and analysis firm further forecasts 41.76 billion active IOT-connected devices globally in 2023, driving 18% growth in connections compared to 2022.

With the growing demand for IOT-related services, smartphone original equipment manufacturers have, over the years, ventured into this space, offering IOT-enabled devices.

For example, Chinese electronics manufacturer Xiaomi sells smartphones as well as smart technology products, such as e-scooters, smart watches and bands, e-bicycles, smart kettles, robot vacuum cleaners, speakers and security cameras at its Sandton City store.

Oppo and Huawei offer consumers a range of cloud-based IOT offerings, including an IOT platform, big data, security and management.

Now an independent company, Honor is aformer sub-brand of Huawei after it was sold to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology in November 2020.

Under new ownership, Honor devices are equipped with Google Mobile Services, which are the Google apps that often come pre-installed on Android device