Honor tech : stopped selling its smartphones in India, announcing its exit from the market last year due to a limited marketing budget and less careful portfolio management.
Key points
• Honor has a licence agreement with the newly formed local company Honor Tech
• Its mid-priced Number series will be released in September.
• Honor competes with the likes of Samsung Electronics .
Chinese smartphone brand Honor is relaunching in India through a licensing deal with a local company and plans to start domestic production early next year, its country executive told Reuters.
Honor stopped selling its smartphones in India and reportedly pulled out last year due to a limited marketing budget and less careful portfolio management.
India was not the focus of Honor, owned by Huawei Technologies, until 2020 – when it was forced to rebrand and reassess its strategy,” said Neil Shah, Vice President of Counterpoint Research.
Honor’s return is underpinned by a licensing agreement with a newly formed Gurugram-based company, Honor Tech, for an “agreed price” for technology and hardware transfer.
It will launch three Honor phone variants in India, with the mid-range Number series expected in September.
The company, which is wholly owned by local shareholders, manufactures, sells and services Honor-branded smartphones in India. “All the phones will eventually be made in India,” CEO Madhav Sheth said without giving further details.
“The biggest challenge for the (Indian) government in the past was how can the (Chinese) brand be responsible in India?” said Sheth, the former head of rival Realme, who was credited with the India expansion.
Recently, Chinese companies have struggled in India as the government banned several programs and tightened investment controls to prevent takeovers by neighbours.
According to Counterpoint Research, Honor is competing with the likes of Samsung Electronics – India’s best-selling company with nearly 20 percent market share – followed by Vivo, Xiaomi, Realme and others.
Honor Tech aims to capture a 5 percent share of the Indian smartphone market in 2024 with sales volumes of at least Rs. 10,000 crore ($1.20 billion), Sheth said.
