Huawei’s smartphone spinoff Honor announces IPO plan

Honor, a spinoff of Chinese technology giant Huawei, recently announced that it is planning to go public, though the company did not disclose which country it would list in.

The company said in a statement;

In order to meet new strategic goals, Honor will continue to optimize its shareholding structure, attract diversified capital, and enter into the capital market through IPO (initial public offering).

The move to raise capital in the public markets underscores Honor’s aggressive push in the smartphone market as it looks to mount a serious challenge to Apple and Samsung in the high-end market.

Huawei was forced to sell Honor in 2020 to a consortium of buyers, which included the government of Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city where the company is headquartered. That was after numerous U.S. sanctions on Huawei crippled its smartphone business by cutting the Chinese tech champion off from critical technologies such as software and semiconductors.

Honor was spun off to save the brand and allow it to continue to operate. Under Huawei, Honor was a mispriced brand that found success in a handful of markets. But the company wants to push into the premium tier of the smartphone market where the likes of Apple and Samsung play.

Honor has the largest market share in China but is still a small player globally as it has yet to build its brand. To help do that, this year, the company launched two expensive foldable phones.

The smartphone maker said it would start to make preparations for the IPO.

As the company starts the IPO preparation process, the composition of the Board of Directors will gradually be adjusted, in accordance with the standards of a listed company, to embrace greater diversity for meeting the relevant governance and regulatory requirements.

Honor