Chinese Tech Firm Honor Debuts Humanoid Robot and Robot Phone

The company demonstrated those products Sunday (March 1) at MWC Barcelona 2026, Bloomberg News reported, calling it Honor’s push to reestablish itself as an artificial intelligence-focused hardware company.

Spun off from Huawei in 2020, Honor began as a budget brand before moving into premium devices and foldable phones, the report added. In 2025, the company pledged to spend $10 billion over five years to build AI devices.

According to the report, the robot is Honor’s first own-brand android. During the demonstration, it performed remote-controlled gestures and poses, although the company has not yet offered details of the robot’s specifications, pricing or production schedule. Honor has said it was designed for customer service functions, Bloomberg added.

Meanwhile, Honor also demonstrated its Honor Robot phone, set to go on sale in China in the latter half of this year.

The “robot” designation relates to the 200-megapixel camera mounted on an articulating arm attached to the device, which can gesture and interact with the user, and capture what Bloomberg deemed “impressive” footage.

Last year, the company introduced its Magic8 series phone, which uses AI to automatically seek lower prices and apply coupons on China’s largest eCommerce platforms. 

“It’s part of the smartphone maker’s latest bid to turn AI from a background feature into a real-world benefit, and it comes as Apple faces growing pressure to prove its own devices can do more than talk about intelligence,” PYMNTS wrote at the time.

A report last from The Wall Street Journal looked at China’s efforts to gain dominance in the humanoid robotics field, with the country now boasting more than 140 companies in the industry.

The report said it’s part of a plan by the Chinese government, which aims to lead the “embodied AI” — a blend of AI and physical systems — sector in the next five years. Since late 2024, cities like Beijing have established investment funds of more than $26 billion to finance the industry, WSJ added, citing data from Morgan Stanley.

The WSJ also says that Elon Musk, whose company Tesla has been pivoting to humanoid robotics, has touted the potential of the Chinese market.

“China is an ass-kicker, next level,” Musk said in January. “To the best of our knowledge, we don’t see any significant [humanoid robot] competitors outside of China.”