(Yicai) Sept. 1 -- Honor has released an overseas edition of its Magic V5 foldable smartphone in the European market, as the Chinese phone brands, along with its peers, take on Samsung.

The Magic V5 overseas edition, which hit the European market on Aug. 28, features an ultra-slim design, powerful artificial intelligence capabilities, and seamless cross-device experiences, Honor announced at an event on the same day.

The device is equipped with the industry’s first on-device large speech model and on-device AI real-time call translation, available in Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Samsung took a 98 percent share of the foldable phone market in Europe before, but the ratio dropped to 73 percent in 2023 and 50 percent last year, mainly because other firms released competing products, such as the Magic V, Pixel Fold, Open, and Phantom V Fold,” an analyst with Counterpoint said.

Honor’s share rose to 34 percent last year from under 10 percent in 2023, the analyst added.

China has formed the world’s best smart hardware supply chain, which covers BOE Technology Group, Seed Semiconductor, Wuhu Token Sciences, and Lens Technology in the glass material field and NBTM New Materials Group and Jiangsu Gian Technology in the hinge structural component field.

Moreover, the Chinese market provides companies with a solid foundation. China has overtaken others to become the world’s largest foldable smartphone market since 2023, according to International Data Corporation. China’s shipments of foldable smartphones rose 13 percent to 4.98 million units in the first half of this year from a year earlier.

Samsung is expected to fight back this year, as its recently released Galaxy Z Fold7 has narrowed the technical gap with its rivals, the analyst pointed out. The European market will become more and more competitive, as Apple will release its first foldable smartphone model next year.

Editor: Futura Costaglione