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Honor launched the Magic Vs foldable smartphone globally in a bid to take on Samsung in the premium end of the handset market.

Honor

BARCELONA, Spain — Chinese smartphone maker Honor launched its foldable phone globally on Sunday, as it looks to compete with Apple and Samsung in the premium tier of the market.

The Honor Magic Vs was first launched in China in November. Now the company is bringing the device to a number of markets abroad, including the U.K., Germany and countries in Latin America.

It marks the Chinese firm’s ambition to expand into the latest smartphone technology — foldables — at the high end of the market, where it will compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung.

Honor was spun off from Huawei, after a number of U.S. sanctions cut the Chinese telecommunications giant off from critical chips and access to Google’s Android mobile operating system, crushing its smartphone business. As a separate entity, Honor has access to Android and to the components that it needs for its high-end devices.

Huawei sold Honor to a consortium of buyers that includes the government of its headquarters city, Shenzhen. Honor was the budget brand under Huawei, but has looked to market itself as a premium player since its independence, filling the gap that Huawei once did.

Honor launched its first smartphone overseas toward the end of 2021 and has since moved aggressively to bring more models to countries outside of China.

The company has been trying to distance itself from Huawei and establish itself independently.

“Although Honor is operating as a completely independent entity, it still has to regularly explain that is it not part of Huawei. Over time this is becoming less of an issue, but it is still a challenge it faces,” Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, told CNBC via email.

Honor Magic Vs specs

The Honor Magic Vs is a so-called foldable smartphone. These are devices that have a screen that can bend. Honor said it has tested the device by folding it and opening it up to 400,000 times with no problem.

Honor’s smartphone runs Android and has a 7.9-inch display when it is fully open. The phone also has a second display on the outside of the device when it is folded, which is 6.45 inches.

The Magic Vs will be offered at a price of 1,599 euro ($1,690) to the European market. It will compete with foldable devices from Samsung and Chinese firm Oppo on the world stage.

But the foldable phone category, which was pioneered by Samsung, is still in the early phases. Foldable devices accounted for only 1.1% of total smartphone shipments in 2022, according to IDC, and this share is expected to increase to just 2.8% in 2026.

The Magic Vs is one of the first foldable devices available in markets outside of China, as Honor attempts to get ahead in the nascent segment of smartphones.

High-end push

While Honor has emerged as one of the biggest smartphone players in China, it has yet to find similar success overseas. It will be hoping its more premium devices can help it win users abroad.

At its peak in 2020, Huawei had managed to become the number one smartphone player in the world, overtaking Samsung and Apple by launching premium devices, equipped with some of the latest technology. Since its smartphone business has been crippled, there has been a big gap left that companies like Samsung, Apple, and other players like Xiaomi, have taken advantage of.

Honor will be hoping to wrestle back some of those users.

“I’ve been impressed by the products that Honor has unveiled and some of the DNA harking from its roots as formally being part of Huawei are clear in the quality of the products. Huawei was snapping at Samsung’s heels when it got stopped in its tracks by the U.S. administration and was setting the benchmark amongst Chinese smartphone makers,” Wood said.

“Honor now needs to assert its independence and start on the long road of establishing its brand in Western markets in a similar manner to other Chinese phone makers. This took Huawei nearly a decade, so there is a significant journey ahead for all those companies seeking to compete with Samsung and Apple.”

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Amazon launches fixed pricing for treatment of conditions such as hair loss. Hims & Hers stock drops 15%

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Amazon launches fixed pricing for treatment of conditions such as hair loss. Hims & Hers stock drops 15%

A worker delivers Amazon packages in San Francisco on Oct. 24, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon on Thursday announced Prime members can access new fixed pricing for treatment of conditions like erectile dysfunction and men’s hair loss, its latest effort to compete with other direct-to-consumer marketplaces such as Hims & Hers Health and Ro.

Shares of Hims & Hers fell as much as 17% on Thursday, on pace for its worst day.

Amazon said in a blog post that Prime members can see the cost of a telehealth visit and their desired treatment before they decide to proceed with care for five common issues. Patients can access treatment for anti-aging skin care starting at $10 a month; motion sickness for $2 per use; erectile dysfunction at $19 a month; eyelash growth at $43 a month, and men’s hair loss for $16 a month by using Amazon’s savings benefit Prime Rx at checkout.

Amazon acquired primary care provider One Medical for roughly $3.9 billion in July 2022, and Thursday’s announcement builds on its existing pay-per-visit telehealth offering. Video visits through the service cost $49, and messaging visits cost $29 where available. Users can get treatment for more than 30 common conditions, including sinus infection and pink eye.

Medications filled through Amazon Pharmacy are eligible for discounted pricing and will be delivered to patients’ doors in standard Amazon packaging. Prime members will pay for the consultation and medication, but there are no additional fees, the blog post said.

Amazon has been trying to break into the lucrative health-care sector for years. The company launched its own online pharmacy in 2020 following its acquisition of PillPack in 2018. Amazon introduced, and later shuttered, a telehealth service called Amazon Care, as well as a line of health and wellness devices.

The company has also discontinued a secretive effort to develop an at-home fertility tracker, CNBC reported Wednesday.

— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report.

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WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning says censorship is still ‘a dominant threat’

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WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning says censorship is still 'a dominant threat'

Chelsea Manning: Censorship still a dominant threat

Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says censorship is still “a dominant threat,” advocating for a more decentralized internet to help better protect individuals online.

Her comments come amid ongoing tension linked to online safety rules, with some tech executives recently seeking to push back over content moderation concerns.

Speaking to CNBC’s Karen Tso at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, Manning said that one way to ensure online privacy could be “decentralized identification,” which gives individuals the ability to control their own data.

“Censorship is a dominant threat. I think that it is a question of who’s doing the censoring, and what the purpose is — and also censorship in the 21st century is more about whether or not you’re boosted through like an algorithm, and how the fine-tuning of that seems to work,” Manning said.

“I think that social media and the monopolies of social media have sort of gotten us used to the fact that certain things that drive engagement will be attractive,” she added.

“One of the ways that we can sort of countervail that is to go back to the more decentralized and distribute the internet of the early ’90s, but make that available to more people.”

Nym Technologies Chief Security Officer Chelsea Manning at a press conference held with Nym Technologies CEO Harry Halpin in the Media Village to present NymVPN during the second day of Web Summit on November 13, 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal. 

Horacio Villalobos | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Asked how tech companies could make money in such a scenario, Manning said there would have to be “a better social contract” put in place to determine how information is shared and accessed.

“One of the things about distributed or decentralized identification is that through encryption you’re able to sort of check the box yourself, instead of having to depend on the company to provide you with a check box or an accept here, you’re making that decision from a technical perspective,” Manning said.

‘No longer secrecy versus transparency’

Manning, who works as a security consultant at Nym Technologies, a company that specializes in online privacy and security, was convicted of espionage and other charges at a court-martial in 2013 for leaking a trove of secret military files to online media publisher WikiLeaks.

She was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was later released in 2017, when former U.S. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

Asked to what extent the environment has changed for whistleblowers today, Manning said, “We’re at an interesting time because information is everywhere. We have more information than ever.”

She added, “Countries and governments no longer seem to invest the same amount of time and effort in hiding information and keeping secrets. What countries seem to be doing now is they seem to be spending more time and energy spreading misinformation and disinformation.”

Manning said the challenge for whistleblowers now is to sort through the information to understand what is verifiable and authentic.

“It’s no longer secrecy versus transparency,” she added.

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SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

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SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

Jaidev Janardana, CEO of U.K. digital bank Zopa.

Zopa

LISBON, Portugal — British online lender Zopa is on track to double profits and increase annual revenue by more than a third this year amid bumper demand for its banking services, the company’s CEO told CNBC.

Zopa posted revenues of £222 million ($281.7 million) in 2023 and is expecting to cross the £300 million revenue milestone this year — that would mark a 35% annual jump.

The 2024 estimates are based on unaudited internal figures.

The firm also says it is on track to increase pre-tax profits twofold in 2024, after hitting £15.8 million last year.

Zopa, a regulated bank that is backed by Japanese giant SoftBank, has plans to venture into the world of current accounts next year as it looks to focus more on new products.

The company currently offers credit cards, personal loans and savings accounts that it offers through a mobile app — similar to other digital banks such as Monzo and Revolut which don’t operate physical branches.

“The business is doing really well. In 2024, we’ve hit or exceeded the plans across all metrics,” CEO Jaidev Janardana told CNBC in an interview Wednesday.

He said the strong performance is coming off the back of gradually improving sentiment in the U.K. economy, where Zopa operates exclusively.

Commenting on Britain’s macroeconomic conditions, Janardana said, “While it has been a rough few years, in terms of consumers, they have continued to feel the pain slightly less this year than last year.”

The market is “still tight,” he noted, adding that fintech offerings such as Zopa’s — which typically provide higher savings rates than high-street banks — become “more important” during such times.

“The proposition has become more relevant, and while it’s tight for customers, we have had to be much more constrained in terms of who we can lend to,” he said, adding that Zopa has still been able to grow despite that.

A big priority for the business going forward is product, Janardana said. The firm is developing a current account product which would allow users to spend and manage their money more easily, in a similar fashion to mainstream banking providers like HSBC and Barclays, as well as fintech upstarts such as Monzo.

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“We believe that there is more that the consumer can have in the current account space,” Janardana said. “We expect that we will launch our current account with the general public sometime next year.”

Janardana said consumers can expect a “slick” experience from Zopa’s current account offering, including the ability to view and manage multiple account bank accounts from one interface and access to competitive savings rates.

IPO ‘not top of mind’

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