(Yicai) Sept. 21 -- Chinese smartphone maker Honor will not rejoin Huawei Technologies, the chief executive officer of Honor said in response to rumors the two companies will reunite.

Huawei is a rival that Honor respects and anticipates the most, Zhao Ming said on Sept. 19, adding that Honor has proven itself to be a qualified and excellent competitor for Huawei as well.

Honor and Huawei went their separate ways three years ago after the latter received sanctions from the United States that deprived it of crucial chips. Spinning off its popular brand Honor was a choice Huawei had to make to exempt Honor from the sanctions.

Regarding the idea that Honor will be the most impacted brand by Huawei’s comeback, Zhao said that there is no need to worry. The Huawei Mate 50 and P60 series lacked fifth-generation network but were still competitors for Honor, he added, noting that Honor’s market share has not shrunk.

According to the latest data from market intelligence provider International Data Corporation, Honor’s share in the Chinese smartphone market has returned to 16.4 percent, ranking third.

On Sept. 19, when Huawei launched its new 5G products, Honor unveiled its new V Purse, the world’s thinnest foldable smartphone. The starting prices of the two versions of the V Purse with 16 gigabytes of random-access memory and 256 GB storage and 512 GB storage are CNY5,999 and CNY6,599 (USD822 and USD904), respectively.

The V Purse debuted at the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin 2023 as a concept model. Due to huge challenges and great difficulties in the mass production of the V Purse, only a limited number is available for sale at present, Zhao explained.

Honor was already competing with Huawei in the foldable smartphone market segment, as its third-generation Magic V2 was rivaling Huawei’s Mate X series.

“The Magic 2 is expected to sell five to 10-fold more units than Honor’s previous two generations of foldable handsets,” Zhao noted.

Honor will open 100 new offline stores this year to replenish resources from retail channels and expand sales, Zhao said earlier.

Editors: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione