HONOR is widening its ambitions beyond smartphones with a new global brand strategy, “Dare to Be,” positioning the company around an expanding ecosystem of AI-powered devices, software and robotics rather than any single product category.
Announced in Riyadh on September 1, the strategy builds on HONOR’s ALPHA PLAN, which the company showcased at LEAP 2026 under the theme “From Vision to Reality.” The direction itself isn’t entirely new, but the branding makes HONOR’s intentions clearer: smartphones remain important, but they are increasingly being treated as one part of a much larger connected platform.
One of the more unusual examples is the HONOR Robot Phone. Rather than simply adding another collection of generative AI features to a conventional handset, the concept combines embodied AI with a robotic camera system capable of physical movement and interaction with its surroundings. HONOR sees this as an example of AI becoming part of how hardware behaves, rather than existing primarily as software running on top of it.
That thinking extends across HONOR’s broader portfolio of smartphones, PCs, tablets and wearables, with the company pushing towards experiences that can move between different devices. The software layer behind that ambition is Agentic OS, which HONOR says is being developed to understand user intent, coordinate more complicated actions and make interactions more proactive across its ecosystem.
There are obvious parallels with the broader technology industry’s move towards AI agents. The bigger challenge for HONOR will be turning those concepts into genuinely useful cross-device experiences rather than simply adding another AI layer to products that already work independently.
Imaging is another pillar of the strategy. HONOR’s AiMAGE platform combines on-device and cloud-based computational photography, while its partnership with professional cinema technology company ARRI brings ARRI Image Science into HONOR’s mobile imaging development. The collaboration is intended to combine ARRI’s filmmaking expertise with HONOR’s computational photography and AI capabilities, potentially giving future HONOR phones a more distinctive approach to cinematic image processing.
The strategy is also arriving as HONOR claims significant momentum in the Middle East. Citing Omdia data, the company says its regional smartphone business grew 35 percent during the first half of 2026, making HONOR the Middle East’s second-largest smartphone brand. HONOR also says it was the only leading brand to grow while overall regional smartphone shipments declined 13 percent during the period. Those figures are supplied by HONOR based on the cited Omdia report and underline why the Middle East is becoming an increasingly important market for the company.
“Dare to Be” ultimately puts a brand name around a transition HONOR has been signalling for some time. The ALPHA PLAN, Agentic OS, Robot Phone, AiMAGE and ARRI partnership now sit under one broader narrative: HONOR wants to compete not simply for the smartphone in your pocket, but for the collection of intelligent devices around it.
That is a considerably more ambitious target. Building good phones is one challenge; creating an AI ecosystem where different categories of hardware genuinely become more useful together is another. HONOR now needs to show that “Dare to Be” can translate from a brand strategy into products and experiences people will actually want to use.
