KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 17 ― According to Reuters, Huawei is selling off its sub-brand Honor to a consortium that consists of over 30 agents and dealers. This is based on a joint statement that’s signed by 40 companies which has formed a new company called Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology to acquire the company.
After the transaction is completed, Huawei will not hold any shares in the new Honor company and this is said to be a market-driven investment to save Honor’s industry chain. There’s no mention of the transaction amount but it was speculated to costs as high as CNY 25 billion (about RM15.6 billion).
The statement added that the shareholders of the new Honor company will fully support the development of the Honor brand and to enable it to leverage on the industry’s advantages in resources, brands, production, channels and service, to effectively compete in the marketplace. The new owners also assured that the change of ownership will not affect Honor’s development direction or the stability of its executive and talent teams.
Honor is currently led by George Zhao and the brand has gone beyond selling affordable smartphones. Previously seen as a budget range of Huawei, Honor has repositioned itself to be a youth-centric brand which also sells laptops, wearables and IoT products.
After introducing the Honor 20 series in 2019, the Huawei sub-brand has faced the same restrictions as Huawei from the US government. As a result, it could no longer ship new devices with Google apps and services pre-installed. Interestingly, Honor has been doing rather well when it comes to computers as they could still offer Intel and AMD-based laptops that are running on Microsoft operating system.
With Huawei relinquishing its control, there’s a chance that Honor will be able to operate on an even playing field like other Chinese smartphone makers. This includes access to US-based hardware, software and services, especially Google Mobile Services, Facebook, Netflix, Spotify and more. ― SoyaCincau
