On Saturday, September 8, the World INS Conference was held in Beijing, China. Honor's President Geroge Zhao was one of the speakers at the event, and during it, confirmed that Honor's first 5G smartphone will launch at some point in 2019.

Zhao didn't go into any detail as to when in 2019 we can expect the phone, but this is certainly a big move for a brand that's mostly seen in the U.S. as a more affordable option compared to the likes of Samsung, Google, Apple, etc.

In addition to 5G, Zhao also talked about Honor's commitment to continuing its development and research on artificial intelligence.

Per Zhao:

With the arrival of 5G, the efficiency of smartphones and Cloud will increase exponentially, and the era of intelligent phones will arrive simultaneously. Meanwhile, the era of full-speed AI phones will come as well.

With this aggressive focus on the 5G future, Honor believes that it will become a top-five smartphone brand by 2020 and move into the top three by 2022.

Honor Magic 2 announced with a sliding design and virtually no bezels