Huawei sells Honor brand to Chinese consortium

Huawei has sold its subsidiary brand Honor to a consortium of Chinese companies and a state organization. The manufacturer has confirmed this. In recent weeks, rumors had already been made that the sale was imminent.

Statement and list of buyers

Huawei confirms the sale in a statement on its own site. The consortium purchasing the shares consists of a government organization and thirty resellers of Honor devices. Huawei has released smartphones, wearables and internet-of-things equipment under the brand in recent years, with young people as the target group.

Huawei says the sale was necessary due to a continuing shortage of technical parts for its smartphones. That’s because of the US government’s ban on US companies to trade with Huawei or Huawei’s subsidiaries. The sale is to ensure that Honor phones remain for sale. “This move was made by Honor’s industry chain of companies to help them survive.” The wording seems to indicate that Huawei itself no longer wanted to continue developing Honor phones.

The buyer is a consortium called Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology. It contains thirty Chinese companies. In between are quite a few state-owned companies such as energy supplier Shenzen Energy and road builder Shenzen Expressway, together with electronics chain Suning, part of Alibaba Group, among others.

The sale would allow Honor to purchase parts for smartphones, separate from Huawei. Huawei will probably receive a sum of money for the sale, although it is unknown how much that is. In recent years, about a quarter of Huawei smartphone sales have been from Honor.