Honor's "negotiation" with Doubao phone process

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The smartphone industry, which had been calm for a while, was stirred up by a bombshell.

On April 13, news emerged that leading domestic phone manufacturer Honor was in talks with ByteDance, with the core topic focused on the joint development of a new generation of "Doubao smartphone."

In response to this rumor, Honor's official channels have not yet commented, but a core insider close to the cooperation confirmed the authenticity of the news to All Weather Tech, noting that the two parties have yet to reach an agreement mainly on the details of brand collaboration.

For Honor, its mindset at the negotiating table is indeed complex and conflicted.

The root of this conflict becomes clear when comparing Honor’s situation with the market position of ByteDance’s former hardware partner, ZTE.

At the end of 2025, ZTE Nubia and ByteDance jointly launched the first Doubao smartphone (M153), which, thanks to its revolutionary “AI fully automatic execution” experience, even triggered a frenzy of premium pricing and leasing in the second-hand market.

The underlying logic of their alliance lies in “leveraging a partnership to break the status quo.” In China's smartphone market with strong Matthew effects, ZTE's market share is relatively low and its brand influence is somewhat weak.

This means that ZTE exchanging some hardware sovereignty for ByteDance’s powerful AI ecosystem empowerment was an excellent shortcut to gain more market share and achieve overtaking on the curve.

Under this logic, brands with relatively weaker positions like Transsion, Lenovo, Meizu, etc., have been listed as potential partners, and the market generally expects such brands to be more willing and more likely to trade hardware sovereignty for a ticket into the AI era.

But Honor faces a completely different situation.

As a top domestic manufacturer, Honor has spent years and vast resources since becoming independent to secure its position in the high-end market amid fierce competition and build strong brand premium and a large loyal user base.

In other words, today’s Honor is already a highly influential golden brand—it doesn’t need to “cling to” stronger partners like weaker brands do.

For this reason, the potential concerns of this collaboration are amplified: Once they cooperate, will the brand value that Honor painstakingly built be seriously diluted?

If the jointly developed device is ultimately defined purely as a “Doubao smartphone,” then ByteDance’s Doubao IP would dominate consumers’ minds.

At that point, Honor's proud brand halo would be greatly diminished, even facing the risk of becoming an “advanced hardware OEM” for an internet giant.

On the other hand, for ByteDance, this deal is a guaranteed win—a perfect “1+1>2” leapfrogging transaction.

By allying with a top manufacturer like Honor, the Doubao smartphone could directly tap into Honor’s mature supply chain capacity, stringent quality control standards, and extensive distribution network, rapidly entering the mainstream flagship market.

From an industry-wide perspective, whether this collaboration happens is also becoming a major observation window for how AI large models are reshaping hardware: Who is the true leader in the industrial chain, hardware manufacturers or internet AI giants?

Honor’s current hesitation and dilemma reflect the strategic anxiety all leading phone makers are facing.

At this crossroads, will Honor stick to its brand bottom line and seek an innovative dual-core cooperation model, or will it compromise in the face of ByteDance's strong bargaining chips? The market awaits the answer.

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