Honor withdraws team from India after raids on Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi

Honor has withdrawn its team from India for “obvious reasons” after Indian government has increased the raids on Chinese firms. Read more.

Honor withdraws its team from India to “play it safe” after recent raids on fellow Chinese rivals. (Honor)

Honor, which used to be a sub-brand under Huawei selling mostly affordable variants of the latter's phone, has now withdrawn its team from India. The brand will remain and function as usually in the market but its team will now operate from its home market. Chief Executive Zhao Ming made the announcement after the recent raids and accusations on high-profile Chinese tech brands such as Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and Huawei. Note that the government hasn't yet conducted raids at Honor's offices in India.

Honor had formed the team a few years ago but chose to leave the country for “obvious reasons”, citing that it wanted to have a “very safe approach”. Hence, while the team has been withdrawn from India, Honor's Indian business will be managed by the local partners. Honor has confirmed that the company will continue to operate in India and will continue to develop business as well.

Honor withdraws team from India amid tensions

Once a part of Huawei, Honor used to be a big name in the smartphone market. The company used to sell some of the most aggressively priced yet feature-rich smartphones across all price points. Its phone used to run on Huawei's EMUI and were mostly clones of Huawei phones but with corners cut to achieve lower prices. The brand used to be a threat to companies like Xiaomi, Samsung, and Motorola in the affordable segments.

However, Honor largely stopped doing business here after the global ban on Huawei took place. Separating from its parent brand, Honor had recently started making comebacks to the market with midrange and premium smartphones. In India, Honor wasn't launching new smartphones but it continued to rely on smart wearables and even ventured into the laptop market.

The Indian government has recently tightened its crackdown on Chinese companies, all of which have been claimed to find guilty of tax evasions. Vivo has been in the news a lot lately owing to the ED freezing its bank accounts. Xiaomi was also accused of evading taxes by illegal means and had overseen a couple of high-profile management changes in the company.