As a credible rumor suggested, Huawei has parted with its Honor brand following its difficulties with the US embargo.
The common story between the Honor brand and the Huawei Group is well and truly over. In October, the Reuters news agency reported Huawei’s desire to part with its “digital” brand to keep costs down. The Chinese giant has been struggling for over a year now, since its Android devices no longer have the right to Google services, and even certain essential technologies to be competitive.
However, the matter is now confirmed. Huawei will sell Honor to a Chinese consortium, as announced in a joint press release from the 40 companies involved.
SAVING THE HONOR
With this resale, Huawei will no longer own any part of the Honor brand, nor its shares. It will now be owned by “Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology”, a brand new group created by these 40 companies. No sum was announced in the press release, but an amount of 12.8 billion Dollars was mentioned a week ago.
This resale will above all allow Honor to free itself from Huawei’s problems. Without the latter, Honor might be able to regain full control of its technologies and reclaim the Google services. The press release specifies on this subject that the resale “represents a market investment to save Honor’s industrial chain“.
The 40 companies in question are made up of players already involved in the creation or distribution of Honor products, and who are therefore directly affected by the brand’s downturn.
WHAT FUTURE FOR HONOR?
If we have raised the possibility for Honor to regain full access to Google services once released from Huawei, we can wonder about its medium-term future. However, as for now, Honor is still very dependent on Huawei in the design of its products. For instance, The recent Honor MagicBooks are often almost identical clones of Huawei products.
We will have to see how the brand’s next products will develop, and in which segments of the market. Will Honor continue to diversify with its EarBuds, or PCs, or will the brand refocus on the smartphone? It will probably take several months for the transfer of leadership to be fully effective and for responses to be obtained.
Source: Reuters