Yesterday Honor held a live streamed event for the global launch of its new flagship devices – the Magic 3 Series. We tuned into the event at a local media briefing, where the Honor brand was re-introduced to the South African market following its recent split from Huawei.

For now, the Magic 3 Series is not set to land in South Africa, but the company will be bringing in a device in Q4 of this year, the Honor 50.

Honor South Africa CEO, Kelvin Cao, confirmed this to us after the Magic 3 event, while also explaining some of the objectives that the brand has planned for the next three years.

Focusing on the device, it was the first that the company revealed following the aforementioned split, while also showcasing that it was compatible with Google Play Services. As Honor explains, it is part of the reason why the device proved successful when launched in China earlier in the year, remarking that a sizeable number of consumers purchased the device after making the move from Huawei.

It will therefore be interesting to see if Honor is banking on the same strategy in South Africa, especially as Huawei has made the move to HMS and the AppGallery for its ecosystem, along with slowing down the pace with which it reveals new smartphones in this part of the globe.

In terms of notable features, this series well specced as far as a premium mid-range device go. To that end the regular Honor 50 sports a 6.57″ display and 50 Pro has a 6.72″ screen, with both having curved edges. There’s also a 439 PPI, and 120Hz refresh rate on offer. Internally a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G 5G is powering things, along with the Honor 50 and Honor 50 Pro have a 4 300mAh and 4 000mAh battery respectively.

Lastly, Honor is talking up the photography and video capabilities of the 50 series, with both models housing a quad camera setup on the rear – 108MP main, 8MP wide-angle, 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensing lenses.

While we have a window, no precise launch date or pricing has been confirmed by Cao.

As for the plans for Honor, the company has set the ambitious goal of holding the most market share for flagship Android phones in SA within the next three years.

Added to this is the desire to build a retail presence, with a branded store and several service centres in the coming years. When the Honor 50 Series arrives, it will likely be sold via all the local networks too, with Cao noting that the company has partnerships in place with the major players in order to increase the reach of its new devices.

With Oppo and Xiaomi vying for the same spot as Honor, which Huawei has seemingly left open, it will be interesting to see which of the trio will be best placed to compete with Samsung and Apple for local market share in three years’ time.