Honor inks pacts with chip suppliers, to launch products in Russia

Honor Device Co Ltd, the Chinese phone maker that has gained full independence from Huawei, said on Friday that it will launch new products in Russia, after inking partnerships with major chip suppliers such as Intel, Micron and Qualcomm.

Reconstructing the supply chains is crucial progress for Honor as it looks to expand its presence in major overseas markets.

Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, said in an interview that, "Nearly all of our supply chain partners have inked deals with us, including United States companies like Qualcomm, Intel, AMD, Microsoft and Micron."

South Korea's Samsung and SK Hynix, as well as Japan's Sony, have also inked supply chain deals with Honor. "Basically, there are no restrictions in our supplies now," said Zhao.

According to him, Honor will soon launch products in Russia. "Honor's overseas marketing system and assets have already been injected into the company," he said, adding that it will ramp up its online and offline retail channels.

On Friday, Honor unveiled its first smartphone product after leaving Huawei－the Honor View 40 series. The handsets are powered by Dimensity 1000+ chipsets from chip company MediaTek.

Honor was sold by Huawei in November to a Chinese consortium of over 30 agents and dealers to ensure the brand's survival. Huawei, which was facing severe pressure due to the persistent unavailability of technical components needed for its mobile phone business, had decided to hive off the Honor brand.

Zhao said the new Honor company has about 8,000 employees, with over 50 percent of them being research and development staff. "With five R&D centers and over 100 innovation labs worldwide, Honor is committed to developing powerful technology that empowers people to become a better version of themselves," he said.

Industrial Securities, a Chinese securities company, said in a research note that due to the shortage of chips in the global electronics industry, companies may not be able to supply large quantities to Honor until the second half of this year.

"We expect Honor's smartphone shipments to reach 40 million units this year," Industrial Securities said.

Jia Mo, an analyst at Canalys, a market research company, said Honor is making efforts to stabilize its relationship with supply chain partners and retail channel partners. Meanwhile, it also has to launch more competitive products to compete with mainstream manufacturers for a larger presence in the global smartphone arena.