Chinese smartphone maker Honor has said it will do what it can to maintain momentum in the face of threats from the US to add the company to the same trade blacklist that forced its former parent Huawei Technologies Co to sell the budget brand to a consortium of partners last year. During the Thursday launch event for the Magic.
What next for Huawei in a post-pandemic 2021?
Cellphones
Huawei Mate Xs. PHOTO: Handout
Will it or will it not? That was the question on many Huawei phone users’ minds as news arrived last month of the Chinese telecom equipment maker being in talks to sell its smartphone business.
Then, last week, founder Ren Zhengfei said the company would continue making its smartphones, confident that the US sanctions that had crippled its smartphone business would be lifted or reduced.
The clampdown by the Trump administration from late 2019 has hurt Huawei significantly. The initial loss of access to Google’s suite of mobile apps was devastating but worse was the further sanctions on the chips that Huawei needed to make its phones and 5G network equipment.
Now an independent brand, Honor wants to overtake Huawei and Apple in the smartphone market.
Huawei spun off Huawei late in 2020 in an effort to save the brand.
The now-liberated Honor has yet to release any phones with Google Play Services preinstalled, but it s expected to do so when the View 40 launches outside of China
As everyone expected, Honor can now make competitive phones with Google Play Services included after being disentangled from Huawei. Free to go its own way and strike partnerships with anyone they choose, the company explained that it planned to take on larger brands including Huawei, Apple with its own-branded flagships later this year.
Honor says it s no longer affected by Huawei s trade sanctions
Huawei was one of the world s top smartphone manufacturers only a few short years ago, but ever-increasing trade sanctions by the United States took a toll on the company. Huawei sold off its Honor sub-division late last year to save the budget brand from the same sanctions, and according to a recent interview with Honor s CEO, the move seems to be working.
Honor s CEO, George Zhao Ming, told the South China Morning Post that the company is doing well after splitting from Huawei. When the Honor team left Huawei, we got so many blessings and support from them that we really have very few constraints on our development and opportunities, he said. We are definitely already prepared for this challenge. Without supply restrictions, Honor has exceptional advantages for capturing the mid-tier and high-end markets in China.