Honor, the cell phone brand Huawei turned off last year, has propelled its first cell phone abroad since becoming an independent organization, complete with access to Google software and Qualcomm chips.
The 529 euro ($614) Honor 50 will launch in 40 markets across the world and marks a major step for the previous Huawei brand as it hopes to claw back market share around the world.
Honor was Huawei’s budget cell phone brand. It was sold off in December to a consortium of purchasers, including funds backed by its home city government of Shenzhen.
Huawei was hit with U.S. sanctions in 2019 and 2020 what remove its access to key technology including Google’s Android operating system and related applications as well as critical chips. That disabled Huawei’s cell phone business.
To save its Honor brand, Huawei auctions it off. Honor isn’t as of now dependent upon U.S. sanctions and its most recent gadget runs Android complete with Google applications and runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 778G chip. The Honor 50 likewise has a 4-camera setup on the back and 6.57-inch display.
While Honor was viewed as a budget brand under Huawei, the organization is hoping to move more into the premium segment of the market. The Honor 50 was launched in China earlier this year.
Since the spinoff, Honor has recovered some market share in China. In August, Honor’s market share remained at 15% in China, making it the third-biggest cell phone player in the nation — whenever it first has stood firm on that position in a year, as per Counterpoint Research.
Internationally, its market share hit 3.7% in August, up from 1.5% in February, yet that was fundamentally because of the increase in China.
In international markets, Honor will go head to head against other Chinese opponents including Xiaomi, which has figured out how to take some of the market share that Huawei lost.