HONOR CEO expects the brand to resume ties with Google soon

Honor’s recently acquired independence from HUAWEI has given the company a new lease on life. Now owned by a Chinese consortium and no longer restrained by the US sanctions, HONOR plans to launch flagship phones to compete with Apple and its mothership HUAWEI.

Speaking to the South China Morning Post in an exclusive interview, HONOR CEO George Zhao also answered a question that’s been on everyone’s mind — Will new HONOR phones support Google Mobile Services? Zhao confirmed that the company is in talks with Google and expects to resume ties with Mountain View soon.

Last week, HONOR reinstated partnerships with Qualcomm, Intel, MediaTek, AMD, and a bunch of other tech companies. However, Google is still one of the biggest missing pieces in HONOR’s new arsenal.

Without Google’s apps and services, the company won’t make much of a mark in Europe which was one of its fastest-growing markets before the US sanctions came into effect.

When asked if he is worried about the impact of US trade restrictions on HONOR, Zhao said, “There is no reason to impose restrictions on a very normal consumer electronics firm. We comply with global business rules, including intellectual property payments, tax payments, etc. We have an internal compliance office to regulate the behavior of each system.”

There’s no confirmation on when HONOR and Google will ink their new partnership or if the new HONOR V40 will step outside China with Google services. We’ll keep you updated in case we hear more on the matter.