Huawei is reported to be in talks to sell part of its Honor smartphone unit that could fetch billions as reported by Reuters.
Apparently with people with knowledge of the matter, Huawei is in talks to sell their Honor unit for upto $3.7 billion to Digital China Group and other suitors.
Digital China is the main distributor for Honor phones and has emerged as the front runner to buy the brand. Other prospective buyers include TCL who are known for their TVs and brand partnerships with phones like Blackberry, and Xiaomi.
The assets to be sold to the eventual owners have yet to be finalized but apparently it could include Honor’s brand, research and development as well as related supply chain management business.
Huawei established the Honor brand in 2013 which was targeted at young consumers and operates independently from its parent company.’
Huawei is in a transition phase right now. Last year they managed to become the second biggest smartphone maker in the world. However in May last year, it was added to the US Entity list which prevented Huawei from trading with US companies. This has grown to the point where they were banned from using TSMC to make their Kirin chips which now affects them on both hardware and software in making phones.
However, Huawei has been working on their own alternate system. Since last year, they have been investing on their own Huawei Mobile Services to replace Google Services on their phones. This year, they announced they are planning to roll out their Harmony OS with HMS at the core from 2021 which is quite soon.
