Huawei Confirms Plans to Sell 'Honor' Brand Following Weeks of Denials

After weeks of vehement denials, Huawei has confirmed plans to sell its 'Laurels' smartphone brand following backbreaking United states of america sanctions that fabricated it almost impossible for the company to carry on with its consumer smartphone business organization. While the US administration has since seemingly softened its opinion and immune Qualcomm to sell its fries to the Chinese tech giant, the damage manifestly has already been done.

According to a joint argument issued by 40 companies involved in the deal, the pop budget smartphone make is being sold to a newly-created consortium that includes over 30 agents and dealers including China Telecom and several government-backed entities such equally the Shenzhen Smart City Evolution Grouping.

As per the study, the buyers will be setting up a new visitor, called Shenzhen Zhixin New Information technology, to make the purchase, but Huawei volition not hold any stake in it. According to Reuters, the statement claimed that the sale represents a "market-driven investment made to salve Accolade's manufacture chain" and the modify in ownership volition not impact Honor'south development direction.

While the official statement didn't reveal a valuation for the deal, a recent report from Reuters suggested that it could exist worth as much every bit 100 billion yuan ($15.two billion). Earlier estimates put the valuation at a much more modest fifteen-25 billion yuan (~$ii.ii billion – $3.vii billion). That particular report as well claimed that Chinese tech giants, TCL and Xiaomi, were too looking to get in on the deal, although, that doesn't seem to have happened.

The offset reports about Huawei's plans to sell its Laurels brand emerged last month when Chinese tech blog, Information technology Dwelling house, published a similar written report citing noted TF International Securities analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo. The written report, withal, was met with tearing denials from the company, forcing the blog to eventually retract the story.