(Yicai Global) June 1 -- Chinese smartphone maker Honor has established an integrated circuit design company in Shanghai.

Shanghai Honor Intelligence Technology Development was set up yesterday with a registered capital of CNY100 million (USD14.1 million), according to corporate information platform Qichacha.

The new firm is one of Honor’s five research centers in China and will focus on developing core software on the terminal side, graphic algorithms, communications, and photography, The Paper reported today, citing the Shenzhen-based company.

As a global open system, Honor will make choices regardless of where chips come from, but in line with the needs of its products, Chief Executive Zhao Ming said after a product release event on May 29 in reply to media questions about his take on Chinese handset makers exiting the chip business.

Last month, China’s biggest domestic smartphone producer, Oppo, said it would stop developing its own chips and close its IC design business Zeku, citing uncertainties in the global economy and the mobile industry.

First-quarter smartphone shipments in China fell almost 12 percent percent to 65.44 million units, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report. They have fallen by more than 10 percent from a year earlier in each quarter since the start of 2022, IDC pointed out.

Honor was spun out and sold by telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies in late 2020 as a result of restrictions on Huawei buying US-made technologies such as chips.

Editor: Futura Costaglione