Honor Stages India Relaunch – Honor, a Chinese smartphone brand, will relaunch in India through a licensing agreement with a local company and plans to begin domestic manufacturing early next year, according to its national leader.
Honor apparently ceased selling smartphones in India last year due to a constrained marketing budget and less conservative portfolio management.
“India was never a focus market for Huawei Technologies-owned Honor until 2020 when it was forced to spin-off the brand and reassess strategy,” said Neil Shah, vice president at Counterpoint Research.
Honor’s resurrection is supported by a license agreement with Honor Tech, a newly founded Gurugram-based corporation, for an unknown “agreed-upon cost” connected to the transfer of technology and hardware.
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Honor phones will be available in three variations in India, with the mid-range Number series arriving in September.
The company, which is entirely owned by Indian stockholders, will manufacture, sell, and service Honor-branded smartphones in India.
“All the phones will be eventually manufactured in India,” CEO Madhav Sheth said, without disclosing further details.
“The biggest challenge with the (Indian) government in the past was how can a (Chinese) brand be accountable in India?,” said Sheth, a former executive at rival Realme who was credited for its India expansion.
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Chinese firms have recently suffered in India, with the government blocking many apps and increasing scrutiny on investments in order to deter takeover bids from its neighbor.
According to Counterpoint Research, Honor will compete with Samsung Electronics, the leading seller in India with a nearly 20% market share, as well as Vivo, Xiaomi, Realme, and others.
Sheth stated that Honor Tech hopes to gain a 5% share of India’s smartphone industry by sales volume in 2024, with a revenue of at least Rs. 10,000 crore ($1.20 billion).
