GUANGZHOU, China – Honor, the Chinese smartphone brand previously owned by Huawei, has launched its first device since it was sold.
Huawei sold Honor, the budget smartphone brand, to a consortium of buyers in China in November as a way to help the unit survive in the face of US sanctions.
In 2019, Huawei was placed on an American export black list called the Entity List, which prohibited American companies from selling certain components to the Chinese technology giant. This included semiconductors as well as software.
Google had to cut ties with Huawei, which prevented the US search giant’s Android mobile operating system from being installed on the Chinese company’s devices. That has seriously damaged Huawei’s sales in international markets.
Last year, Huawei Honor sold to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology, a consortium of 30 agents and dealers. Huawei said at the time that the sale was closed so Honor could “survive this difficult time.”
“Splitting off the Honor team should help it get the components it needs, although that could take many months and is never guaranteed, especially given the geopolitical tensions in the air,” said Bryan Ma, vice-president. president of device research at IDC.
“Nevertheless, the move will help keep the team engaged with suppliers in the hope that it can continue with product development.”
Most of Honor’s sales come from China. According to IDC, Honor shipped 64 million smartphones worldwide in 2019. In the first nine months of 2020, the company shipped 42 million copies. Full data for 2020 is not yet available.
The V40
Honor’s new smartphone is called the V40. It has a 6.72-inch display and is available in three colors: silver, black and rose gold.
Honor spoke about the phone’s graphics processing and touchscreen capabilities, features that enhance gaming on the device, a popular use of smartphones in China.
It has the ability to connect to the next generation of 5G mobile networks, an important requirement in China, the world’s largest market for 5G phones.
The V40 uses a major 5G chip from Taiwan-based MediaTek, a company that became China’s largest provider of smartphone semiconductors in 2020.
Honor’s V40 starts at 3,599 yuan ($ 556) for the 128 GB storage option and 3,999 yuan for the 256 GB version. It will be released in China, but it is unclear whether it will be launched internationally.
“The message they (Honor) want to convey is that they have inherited a lot from Huawei, be it the chipset capabilities, photography and R&D (research and development), all the things they got from Huawei devices , they have it all. ” Nicole Peng, a mobile analyst at Canalys, said.
“They don’t want to show that they lack the R&D capability that Huawei has. They want to show that they still have it and that they have a big team in R&D and that’s something people asked when they split up, whether they can keep that up. kind of innovation. ”