Huawei is selling out its Honor sub-brand for reportedly $15 billion to a Chinese consortium led by the Shenzhen government and Honor distributor Digital China.
Honor will soon go forth as an independent brand and they have already been given the go-ahead by Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei.
Ren welcomes the competition once this deal is complete.
In a farewell speech, Ren urged Honor employees to outshine his company which has had a couple of really tough months following restrictions by U.S. sanctions.
These restrictions have made it hard for Huawei to get components for its smartphones including losing access to processors and Google apps and services.
When the deal is finalized, Honor won’t have to worry about sanctions and can possibly get back to sourcing hardware and software components from companies listed in the U.S Trade ban.
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On why he was selling out, Ren said that he didn’t want employees of both Honor’s distributors and agents across the world to lose their jobs as sales channels dry up.
“Wave after wave of severe U.S. sanctions against Huawei has led us to finally understand, certain American politicians want to kill us, not just correct us,” he says according to a speech posted on a Huawei employee forum on Thursday.
“We don’t have to drag innocent people into the water just because we suffer,” he continues.
According to Canalys, Honor brand smartphones[mostly budget and midrange] consituted 26% of the 51.7 million handsets Huawei shipped in July-September this year.
“We are your competitors in the future,” Ren says his speech.
Hopefully with this new lease of life, Honor will be more prominent in markets like Kenya.
Honor joins other sub-brands who have gone independent in recent years including Redmi and POCO from Xiaomi, realme from OPPO and iQOO from vivo.
