Huawei partners with Micromax as Honor's operations shrink in India

• Huawei has partnered with Micromax to expand its offline retail network in India.
• Meanwhile its sub-brand, Honor, is downsizing its operations in the country reportedly due to falling sales.
• Honor sells more devices in India than Huawei but Huawei's partnership with Micromax does not include the sub-brand.

Chinese tech major Huawei is trying to sell more of its phones by partnering with Indian consumer electronics company Micromax and, at the same time, Huawei's sub-brand, Honor, seems to be thinning down its operations in India in the face of piling inventory.


Huawei's market share in India has been dipping since last year and being blacklisted from doing business with American companies like Google only seems to have made things worse.

This time around, the sales have dipped further than before with inventory piling up according to a source at Honor who spoke to ET, resulting in downsizing of the sub-brand's operations.

And, Huawei is only looking to expand its own devices through Micromax's retail network. It's partnership with the local Indian smartphone manufacturer does not include Honor.

Building one brand while shutting down the other

Huawei sells its smartphones in India under two brand names, Huawei — providing mid-range and premium smartphones — and its sub-brand Honor, which makes entry-level and budget devices.

And while, Huawei is the parent brand — Honor sells more in India in terms of volume.

Hindu Business Line reported that Huawei is still looking to expand its operations in India since its growth prospects in the US are now limited.

Even in India, it's going to be an uphill battle for the brand. The last time Huawei breached the 3% threshold was back in 2018.

According to Counterpoint Research, it's market share was close to dipping below 2% during the first quarter of 2019 while Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo and Oppo sold considerably more devices.

In fact, one of the primary reasons to leverage Micromax's retail network to boost offline sales could be that the local player is more dominant, with 5% market share.

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