Honor To Let The Public Decide How Much Its New Smartphone Will Cost

Honor has unveiled its first affordable smartphone, the Holly, with an unusual crowdsourcing pricing structure.

The fledgling manufacturer, owned by Chinese titan Huawei, will drop the price of the new device depending on how many people register on a special website. The public has 20 days to register on the ‘Price Hacker’ site, which launched yesterday, with the final price being decided and announced on February 23.

The plastic-backed Holly will then be available at this price for four days before reverting to an RRP of £109.99 from Amazon, meaning anyone who registers may be able to pick up a bit of a bargain.

Flexible

“We are inviting all our fans to help up shape the pricing of this product,” said Lars Weisswange, Honor’s European Executive Vice President said during the Holly’s unveiling in London yesterday, which also marked 100 days of the company operating in Europe.

“You can say ‘I want this device to be cheaper’ and we will respond.”

The Holly features a 5in HD display, 8MP rear camera and will run Android 4.4.2, putting it into direct competition with other mid-range devices such as the Lumia 735 and Moto G.

The dual-SIM device is powered by a 1.3Ghz quad-core processor, and comes with 16GB of storage, which can be expanded via microSD. Its 2000mAh battery means it should offer all-day usage, even with a 1280x720px resolution screen.

Expanding

The Holly is Honor’s third device launch as it looks to establish itself as a major presence in the Western smartphone markets. The new smartphone follows the Honor 6 and 3C from the brand, which looks to promote a ‘C2B’ (consumer to business) model that puts the customer’s demand at the centre of its production.

The company revealed during the launch of the Holly that it had sold 30m devices worldwide during 2014, and was now established in 60 countries. Honor is now looking for two million device sales in Western Europe during 2015 as it looks to be, “the leading brand in the Android world”.

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