Honor confirms permission to use Google Mobile Services

Last November, Huawei’s sub-brand Honor was officially sold to a new consortium, with a valuation of $15.2 billion. This move surprised many people, when Huawei was still facing many difficulties. However, Huawei’s removal of the Honor brand makes complete sense.

If Honor is still owned by Huawei, it means that the brand must also comply with the US bans imposed on the Chinese giant. The ban on cooperation with US technology companies also makes it impossible for Honor to use Google Mobile Services, nor to order new chips from Qualcomm.

The only way is for Honor to become a completely independent company from Huawei. And that’s exactly what Huawei’s sub-brand has done. And now, Honor has confirmed that starting from Honor 50 onwards, its smartphones will be able to use Google Mobile Services. This is also the first time since Huawei was placed on the US entity list in May 2019.

Honor said that upcoming smartphones will still use the Magic UI interface, but will be updated with new features. Besides Google, Honor also began to resume cooperation with other US technology companies, such as Qualcomm or Intel. In particular, Honor 50 will be equipped with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 778G chip.

Late last year, Nikkei Asia commented that Honor could ship 100 million smartphones in 2021. It could even surpass Huawei.

Reference: phonearena