Today, Honor announced a new lineup of flagship phones with the Magic 3 series, which comprises three devices in all. These new phones are arriving at a time where Honor is trying to pull in more Chinese market share for itself as an independent company, and these are the first flagships Honor has delivered since Huawei sold it off last year.
Huawei was almost on the verge of toppling smartphone giant Samsung when its fate quickly turned upside down after it was added to the notorious US' Entity List. No longer even part of the world's top five biggest smartphone brands, Huawei saw many of its businesses and subsidiaries banned from buying or licensing US products, including software. It also had to sell of Honor to save it from the same fate, but that might all be for naught as far as some US lawmakers are concerned.
Honor has revealed its Honor 50 smartphones and, more importantly, that Google's apps and services will be supported on the new handsets. The announcement today - which confirmed availability and pricing for the Honor 50 and Honor 50 Pro in China - came with the news that the former Huawei subsidiary has achieved its big goal in spinning out.
Honor has begun teasing its newest flagship smartphone, the Honor 50 Series, ahead of its full reveal later this month, and you'd be forgiven for feeling a sense of deja-vu right about now. The new handset has a distinctive double-circle camera system on the rear, strongly reminiscent of the aesthetic Huawei teased us with last week of its own P50 Series phone.
When Huawei got slapped with severe US sanctions, it took down its many subsidiaries and business with it. That included Honor, which was expected to be a rising star before that fate befell its parent company. Late last year, Honor officially and legally cut its ties with Huawei, which freed it to make partnerships that the larger company couldn't. That seems to be true with Qualcomm, whose Snapdragon chip will power the upcoming Honor 50 series. Whether that phone will also see the return of Google Play apps and services, however, is still up in the air.
Honor is going it alone, cutting ties with Huawei as it spins out as an independent business, and inking the deals that the US government blocked its former parent company from making. The Chinese phone-maker launched its first device as a standalone company today, the Honor View40, a 5G smartphone with aggressive pricing.
This week the folks at HONOR revealed the HONOR View40 at a live streamed event in China. This device is the first major release of the year for HONOR, and one of the most extravagant devices released by the brand thus far. The HONOR View40 works with a waterfall cured 7.72-inch OLED display with a resolution of 2676 x 1236 pixels.
For the past year or so, Huawei has gained something like a reverse Midas touch, where every company and subsidiary under its name gets dragged into its US export ban. That included Honor, which has always been promoting itself as an independent but related brand from Huawei and has, to its credit, helped Huawei achieve the sales numbers it has been flaunting. That independence finally became complete two months ago when Huawei sold off its Honor business and that first fruit of that separation might be coming this week.
The new year has mostly inspired new hope for people who want to leave the troubled 2020 behind. Unfortunately for Huawei, this year could actually be worse for it as it starts to feel the full effects of the US sanctions. Despite its best efforts and marketing, what could have been the world's largest smartphone vendor could end up from number 2 to number 7 even as the global smartphone market grows by just a bit.
With its resources being restricted and possibly running low, it was really only a matter of time before Huawei took drastic measures to keep itself afloat. "Drastic measures" often imply layoffs, divestment, and sales, none of which look good no matter which way you look at it. Huawei is, of course, trying to point it in a positive light but it remains to be seen if Honor will survive this acquisition by a new Chinese company representing Honor's own agents and dealers.
A report is making the rounds that claims smartphone manufacturer Huawei plans to sell its budget smartphone unit called Honor to a consortium known as Digital China and the government of Shenzhen. Huawei is based in the town of Shenzhen. The deal, according to people claiming knowledge of the negotiations, is worth 100 billion yuan (about $15.2 billion).
Huawei seems to be in dire straits, enough to need to sell off parts of its business to refocus its resources. While it isn't bowing out of the smartphone business completely, sources claim that it is looking into selling a large part of its Honor smartphone business. While this might not be a shocking move, it could still end up as bad news for both Honor as well as Huawei, especially in the midst of the uncertainty of the company's future.