November 12, 2026 – Honor has been named an official sponsor of the 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting, using the Shenzhen-hosted summit to showcase a broader push into AI-driven devices beyond smartphones.
The company confirmed on November 11 that it will display three products at APEC-related events: the Honor Robot Phone, the new Magic9 smartphone series, and its humanoid robot “Lightning,” which won the Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Robot Half Marathon in April with a net time of 50 minutes and 26 seconds.
Honor CEO Li Jian said the sponsorship reflects the company’s ambition to expand its global presence and AI terminal ecosystem. Honor’s global chief marketing officer, Guan Haitao, added that the brand’s “Dare to Think, Dare to Be Different” positioning aligns with APEC’s emphasis on openness, cooperation and innovation.
The Robot Phone, launched in August 2026 at a starting price of 9,999 yuan, integrates a four-degree-of-freedom titanium gimbal with an on-device agent system. Honor has positioned it as an attempt to move AI interaction out of the screen and into physical space, enabling automatic framing, subject tracking and more proactive device behavior.
“Lightning” represents Honor’s parallel bet on embodied intelligence. The robot’s half-marathon result was achieved in autonomous navigation mode, drawing on Honor’s expertise in power management, thermal control, sensor fusion and edge AI originally developed for consumer electronics.
On the smartphone side, Honor continues to lean on the Magic9 series. The lineup, released on September 28, 2026, includes the Magic9, Magic9 Ultra Edition and Magic9 Pro Max, with an ARRI co-developed imaging system and pricing from 4,499 yuan. Industry data indicate the series has sold more than 500,000 units and has held the top spot among Android flagships for several consecutive weeks, though Honor has not issued an official confirmation of the cumulative figure.
The APEC sponsorship gives Honor a high-profile platform to present itself less as a pure smartphone vendor and more as an AI terminal ecosystem company. Its next competitive test will be whether robotics concepts, agent-enabled phones and premium flagships can translate into sustained demand across both domestic and overseas markets.
