Huawei Announces the Sale of Its Honor Phone Business

On November 17, Huawei issued a press release announcing the sale of its brand Honor. Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co, a consortium of several private and public enterprises, will be the new owner of all of Honor's assets.

Huawei says the decision "has been made by Honor's industry chain to ensure its own survival," following "tremendous pressure" and "a persistent unavailability of technical elements needed for our mobile phone business." After the deal's closing, the company emphasized that Huawei will no longer own shares, nor will it participate in business management or any decisions in the "new" Honor.

Huawei did not disclose any more details of the deal, noting only that since its foundation in 2013, Honor has grown into a large smartphone brand, selling over 70 million devices per year.

It was reported that Huawei is looking for a buyer for the Honor brand in mid-October. Last week, the deal's details were disclosed: Honor was bought out by mobile phone distributor Digital China and the government of the company's hometown of Shenzhen for $15 billion. This deal will help the new Honor bypass US sanctions and, most likely, start releasing smartphones with Google services again.

Over the three months from July to September, Honor devices accounted for 26% of Huawei smartphones' total sales (51,7 million units).