By Kate Yuan

(JW Insights) Aug 21 -- Chinese smartphone brand Honor will come back to the Indian market, where it exited three years ago, according to Madhav Sheth, former CEO of realme.

“Honor smartphones will be launched soon in India,” he shared in a post on social media, confirming that he has joined the company.

Wingtech (闻泰科技), Chinese ODM giant, has received orders from Honor and will assemble them at Wingtech's plant in India, a Chinese media outlet learned from sources in the supply chain on August 19.

This is related to the impact of import tariffs in India and the country’s Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) program supporting the development of the electronics manufacturing industry. The products are expected to be launched in the third quarter, said the sources.

Honor unveiled the Magic5 series at the 2023 World Mobile Congress, starting at EUR899 ($978). Zhao Ming, Honor CEO, said that “Our overseas business planning is already well-established to this day, and we do not see any bottlenecks or limitations in Honor's growth overseas for the next five years or even longer. It is projected that Honor's performance in the overseas market will double in 2023 compared to 2022.”

Honor became an independent brand in 2020 after being spun off from Huawei after it was sanctioned by the US.