Huawei's Honor launches 2 new products in India amid US ban

Chinese technology company Huawei's smart devices brand Honor Wednesday launched two Android-based products in spite of the US barring its companies from supplying software and hardware to the parent firm.

The US government has barred its companies, including Google, from supplying software and hardware to Huawei alleging security risk from the company.

After the US ban, Google-owned Android platform had said it would comply with the US government rules on Huawei and services like Google Play & security from Google Play Protect would keep functioning on existing Huawei devices.

Android services, however, would be available on the two new Honor devices that would go on sale from July, according to the company.

The devices, Honor Pad 5 tablet PCs with 8-inch and 10.1-inch display, are based on the Android pie platform. The products are priced in the range of Rs 15,499 to Rs 18,999.

While Honor officials have been tight-lipped on their future plans, according to sources closely working with the Huawei's smartphone brand, the firm is planning to launch next set of smartphones in the third quarter of this calendar year.

In the latest March quarter, Huawei was the second largest smartphone vendor with global shipments of 59.1 million units and 19 per cent market share, behind Samsung that had 71.9 million units shipment (23.1 per cent share), according to the research firm IDC.

Counterpoint Research Associate Director Tarun Pathak said the latest development is going to impact the new device sales for Huawei and Honor.

India is one of their key countries outside China with almost four per cent market share, he added.

About 31 million units smartphones were shipped in India during the January-March 2019 quarter with Xiaomi leading the tally with 29 per cent share and followed by Samsung (23 per cent), Vivo (12 per cent), Realme and Oppo (7 per cent each).