First smartphone from the old Huawei unit since its sale

GUANGZHOU, China – Honor, the Chinese smartphone brand formerly owned by Huawei, has launched its first device since its sale.

Huawei sold Honor, its budget smartphone brand, in November to a consortium of buyers in China to help the unit survive in the face of US sanctions.

In 2019, Huawei was put on a U.S. export blacklist called the Entity List, which blocked U.S. companies from selling certain components to the Chinese tech giant. This included both semiconductors and software.

Google was forced to cut ties with Huawei, which meant that the US search giant’s Android mobile operating system could not be installed on the Chinese company’s devices. This severely affected Huawei’s sales in international markets.

Last year, Huawei sold Honor to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology, a consortium of 30 agents and resellers. At the time, Huawei said the sale was made so Honor could “get through this difficult time.”

“The separation from the Honor team should help them get the components they need, although this could still take several months and is never guaranteed, especially given the geopolitical tension in the air,” said Bryan Ma, vice president of device research at IDC.

“Nonetheless, this decision helps keep the team engaged with suppliers in the hope of being able to further develop their products.”

The majority of Honor’s sales come from China. In 2019, Honor shipped 64 million smartphones worldwide, according to IDC. In the first nine months of 2020, the company shipped 42 million units. Complete data for 2020 is not yet available.

Honor’s new smartphone is called the V40. It has a 6.72-inch screen 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 gameplay on the device, a popular use for smartphones in China.

It has the ability to connect to next-generation 5G mobile networks, a key requirement in China, which is the world’s largest market for 5G phones.

The V40 uses a key 5G chip from Taiwan’s MediaTek, a company that became China’s top smartphone semiconductor supplier 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 not known if it will be released internationally. .

“The message that they (Honor) want to convey is that they have inherited a lot from Huawei, it doesn’t matter if it’s the capacity of the chipset, the photography and the R&D (research and development), all they got. Huawei devices, they have it all, ”Nicole Peng, mobile analyst at Canalys, said.

“They don’t want to show that they lack the R&D capacity that Huawei has. They want to show that they still have it and that they have a great R&D team and that’s something people were wondering. when they broke up, if they could keep that – kind of innovation. ”