Huawei secretly sold the Honor brand

The US sanctions that have hit Huawei are forcing the company to look for ways to survive. And one of the ways out is the sale of the Honor sub-brand. Yesterday it was reported that the issue with the sale of Honor’s assets has been resolved and by November 20, it should be officially announced who will become the new owner of the sub-brand. Reuters, citing knowledgeable sources, named the owner of Honor.

Huawei secretly sold the Honor brand

This is a consortium that consists of the phone distributor Digital China and the government of Shenzhen. Digital China will eventually become one of the two largest shareholders in Honor and its share will be 15%. The company itself – Honor Terminal Co Ltd was formed in April this year and is wholly belongs to Huawei. Digital China will be joined by at least three investment companies supported by the financial government and the Shenzhen Technology Center. Each of them should eventually receive from 10 to 15% of the shares.

Following the acquisition of Honor, the new owners plan to retain most of their management team and over 7,000 employees. Within the next 3 years, the company must go public for a public offering.

Digitimes: Huawei will drop to the 7th place in 2021

After three consecutive years of recession in 2018-2020, global smartphone shipments will pick up next year; thanks to the active deployment of fifth-generation mobile networks around the world.

According to Digitimes Research, demand for 5G smartphones will grow in the next five years, driven by the growing number of commercial 5G networks and expanding coverage. The low price of entry-level 5G devices in emerging markets will also drive global smartphone shipments; which will reach over 1.5 billion units in 2023 and 1.7 billion units in 2025, respectively.

In 2021, Samsung Electronics and Apple will be able to take the top two positions, followed by Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi. China’s Transsion, which sells entry-level phones under the Tecno, Itel and Infinix brands in Africa and South Asia, will come in sixth. Due to US trade sanctions, Digitimes expects Huawei to drop to seventh place.

In addition, Digitimes Research also expects global 5G phone shipments to surpass 200 million units in 2020; and a grow to over 1.22 billion units in 2025.