Above: Honor’s current smartphones.

On November 17, 2020, Huawei Investment and Holding Co Ltd announced that it was divesting its Honor business to Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co., Ltd.

The Honor brand targeted the youth market and enjoyed a small but visible presence in US stores like Best Buy, creating a market for Huawei’s device technologies in a more affordable brand with, perhaps, a more easily pronounceable name.

The company marketed smartphones and laptops under the brand, but has been hampered by the restrictions placed on its development of hardware by the US Government, a situation that Huawei described in its release as “a persistent unavailability of technical elements needed for our mobile phone business.”

The move, Huawei said, was necessary to give the Honor business a chance for survival and was a response to a proposal by more than 30 agents and dealers of the smartphone, smartwatch and laptop brand that ships over 70 million units annually.

In its own statement, Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology described the acquisition of the Honor assets as “a market-driven investment.”

The new company promised to “follow market rules for fair transactions.”