11 November 2020

Facebook extends its temporary ban on political ads for another month


The election is settled, but the nation is far from it.

Before Election Day in the U.S., Facebook hit pause on all political and social issue ads. At the time, the company made it clear that the precautionary measure designed to turn off one potential faucet of misinformation would be temporary, but it couldn’t say how long the policy would remain in effect.

Now, Facebook says the temporary ban will continue for at least another month. The decision to extend the special policy was implemented Wednesday, four days after Joe Biden’s election victory — and four days after it became clear that Trump had no intention of conceding a lost election.

“The temporary pause for ads about politics and social issues in the US continues to be in place as part of our ongoing efforts to protect the election,” the company wrote in an update to its previous announcement. “Advertisers can expect this to last another month, though there may be an opportunity to resume these ads sooner.”

Facebook’s ongoing political ad pause throws a wrench into things in Georgia, where two January runoff elections will decide which party will control the Senate heading into President-Elect Biden’s administration. A friendly Senate is essential for many of Biden’s biggest proposals, including a $2 trillion climate package that could reshape the American economy and push the country toward an electrified future that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels.

Over the last few days, a shocking number of Republicans have “humored” the president’s refusal to transfer power in spite of an unambiguous election call and Biden’s decisive win in Pennsylvania, which cut off any potential paths to victory for his opponent. The Trump campaign’s last-ditch flurry of legal challenges have presented little of substance so far, and they might ultimately be more about dividing a nation and sowing doubt than prevailing in court.


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MTV partners with Unrd to create a mobile version of ‘Ghosted: Love Gone Missing’


Mobile storytelling startup Unrd is making its first move into adapting existing intellectual property — specifically “Ghosted: Love Gone Missing,” an MTV reality series about ghosting (the dating practice, not anything supernatural).

Until now, Unrd (pronounced “unread”) has created original crime, horror and romance stories that are told through characters’ phones, through content like text messages, video footage and more.

Starting next week, on November 16, the app will feature a version of “Ghosted” that — unlike the TV show — is scripted, as users explore characters’ text messages, photos and video calls to discover why they’ve been ghosted. They’ll even get to vote on whether the characters should “ghost” or “make up” before they see the stories’ ending (their votes won’t affect the outcome).

MTV Head of Digital Rory Brown told me that this was a “very close collaboration” between MTV and the Unrd team, led by CEO Shib Hussain.

“This is the first time they’ve partnered with an already established IP — but that didn’t scare us at all, to be that first media partner that they worked with,” Brown said. “There was a strong point of view on our side of the house how to keep it true to the existed format, while the Unrd team helped us reimagine it, and our collaboration met in the middle of that Venn diagram.”

Unrd

Image Credits: Unrd

He also argued that while interactivity can be “a bit of a buzzword in the industry,” Unrd isn’t focusing on “interactivity for interactivity’s sake.” Instead, the aim is to create “a more immersive experience for the user.”

Unrd will feature three stories tied to “Ghosted,” each of them unfolding over six days.

“The key thing that we do different is this notion of real time,” Hussain said. “You can’t just binge it and consume every story in one day. You’ve got to wait with the character for the next message. That’s more immersive, and it also builds that tension and excitement amongst users as well.”

Brown noted that these Unrd stories are launching during a break in the second season of “Ghosted.” The hope is that they’ll keep existing fans engaged while creating new fans as well.

“At MTV, we’re always going to keep looking at ways to test the elasticity of IP,” he said. “I think Unrd is one way to do that. We’re talking to other partners, but Shib and his team have been fantastic to work with and we’d love to keep the relationship going.”


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India approves Google’s $4.5 billion deal with Reliance’s Jio Platforms


India’s antitrust watchdog has approved Google’s proposed investment of $4.5 billion in the nation’s largest telecom platform Jio Platforms, it said in a tweet on Wednesday.

Google announced in July that it would be investing $4.5 billion for a 7.73% stake in the top Indian telecom network. As part of the deal, Google and Jio Platforms plan to collaborate on developing a customized-version of Android mobile operating system to build low-cost, entry-level smartphones to serve the next hundreds of millions of users, the two companies said.

Jio Platforms is planning to launch as many as 200 million smartphones in the next three years, according to a pitch the telecom giant has made to several developers. These smartphones, as is the case with nearly 40 million of Jio’s feature phones in circulation today, will have an app store with only a few dozen apps, all vetted and approved by Jio, according to one developer who was pitched by Jio Platforms. An industry executive described Jio’s store as a walled garden.

The Indian watchdog, Competition Commission of India (CCI), was said to be interested in reviewing the data sharing agreement between Google and Jio, Indian newspaper Economic Times reported last month, citing an unidentified source.

The announcement today comes days after the CCI announced it had directed an in-depth investigation into Google to verify the allegations of whether the Android-maker promotes its payments service during the installation of an Android smartphone (and whether phone vendors have a choice to avoid this); and if Google Play Store’s billing system is designed “to the disadvantage of both i.e. apps facilitating payment through UPI, as well as users.”

The call for this in-depth investigation was prompted after the CCI concluded in its initial review that requiring Google Pay to be used to buy apps or make in-app payments was an “imposition of unfair and discriminatory condition, denial of market access for competing apps of Google Pay and leveraging on the part of Google,” the watchdog said.

Jio Platforms, which has amassed over 400 million subscribers, has this year raised over $20 billion from 13 high-profile investors including Facebook, which alone invested $5.7 billion into the Indian firm. That deal has also been approved by the CCI. Jio Platforms is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, India’s most valued firm. It is run by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man.


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How to Drive User Engagement to Your Site


User engagement on a website is a critical factor in ensuring that your website ranks well on search engine platforms. When my co-founders and I started Ascend Finance, I knew that user engagement could potentially be the most important metric to measure. Most websites have competitors that offer a similar product or service. Even if […]

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Josh.ai launches a ‘nearly invisible’ Amazon Echo competitor that’s the size of a coin


In the past several weeks we’ve seen refreshes and product expansions from about every facet of the smart home virtual assistant world. Apple launched the HomePod Mini, Google offered a long-overdue refresh of the Google Home and Amazon found even more speaker shapes to shove Alexa into.

Today, we’re getting an addition from a startup competitor. Josh.ai has aimed to build out a niche in the space by building a smart assistant product that’s designed to be professionally installed alongside other smart home wares, and they announced a new product this afternoon.

The device, Josh Nano, fully buys into a more luxury home-focused niche with a low-profile device that appears to be a little bit bigger than a half-dollar, though the bulk of the device is embedded into the wall itself and wired back to a central unit via power-over-ethernet. The device bundles a set of four microphones eschewing any onboard speaker, instead opting to integrate directly with a user’s at-home sound system. Josh boasts compatibility with most major AV receiver manufacturers in addition to partnerships with companies like Sonos. There isn’t much else to the device; a light for visual feedback, a multi-purpose touch sensor and a physical switch to cut power to the onboard microphones in case users want extra peace of mind.

Image via Josh.ai

The aim of the new hardware is to hide the smart features of a home and move away from industry-standard touchscreen hubs with dated interfaces. By stripping down a smart home product to its essential feature, Josh.ai hopes it can push more users to buy in more fully with confidence that subsequent hardware releases won’t render their devices outdated and ugly. The startup is taking pre-orders for the device (available in black and white color options) now and hopes to start shipping early next year.

Powering these devices is a product the company calls Josh Core, a small server which basically acts as a hub for everything Josh talks to in a user’s home, ensuring that interactions between smart home devices can occur locally, minimizing external requests. The startup will also continue selling its previously released Josh Micro, which integrates a dedicated speaker into the wall-mounted hardware.

Though Josh.ai partners directly with professional installers on the hardware, the startup has been scaling as a software business, offering consumers a license to their technology on an annual, five-year or lifetime basis. The price of that license also differs depending on what size home they are working with, with “small” rollouts being classified as homes with fewer than 15 rooms. In terms of hardware costs, Josh.ai says that pricing varies, but for most jobs, the average cost for users works out to be something like $500 per room.

Massive tech companies naturally design their products for massive audiences. For startups like Josh.ai this fact provides an in-road to design products that aren’t built for the common needs of a billion users. In fact, the selling point for plenty of their customers comes largely from the fact that they aren’t buying devices from Google, Amazon or Apple and hard-wiring microphones that feed back to them inside their home.

Though 95% of the startup’s business today focuses on residential, going forward, the company is also interested in scaling how their tech can be used in commercial scenarios like conference rooms or even elevators, the startup tells me.


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Josh.ai launches a ‘nearly invisible’ Amazon Echo competitor that’s the size of a coin


In the past several weeks we’ve seen refreshes and product expansions from about every facet of the smart home virtual assistant world. Apple launched the HomePod Mini, Google offered a long-overdue refresh of the Google Home, and Amazon found even more speaker shapes to shove Alexa into.

Today, we’re getting an addition from a startup competitor. Josh.ai has aimed to build out a niche in the space by building a smart assistant product that’s designed to be professionally installed alongside other smart home wares and they announced a new product this afternoon.

The device, Josh Nano, fully buys into a more luxury home-focused niche with a low-profile device that appears to be a little bit bigger than a half-dollar, though the bulk of the device is embedded into the wall itself and wired back to a central unit via power-over-ethernet. The device bundles a set of four microphones eschewing any onboard speaker, instead opting to integrate directly with a user’s at-home sound system. Josh boasts compatibility with most major AV receiver manufacturers in addition to partnerships with companies like Sonos. There isn’t much else to the device, a light for visual feedback, a multi-purpose touch sensor, and a physical switch to cut power to the onboard microphones in case users want extra peace of mind.

Image via Josh.ai

The aim of the new hardware is to hide the smart features of a home and move away from industry standard touch screen hubs with dated interfaces. By stripping down a smart home product to its essential feature, Josh.ai hopes it can push more users to buy in more fully with confidence that subsequent hardware releases won’t render their devices outdated and ugly. The startup is taking pre-orders for the device (available in black and white color options) now and hopes to start shipping early next year.

Powering these devices is a product the company calls Josh Core, a small server which basically acts as a hub for everything Josh talks to in a user’s home, ensuring that interactions between smart home devices can occur locally, minimizing external requests. The startup will also continue selling its previously released Josh Micro which integrates a dedicated speaker into the wall-mounted hardware.

Though Josh.ai partners directly with professional installers on the hardware, the startup has been scaling as a software business, offering consumers a license to their technology on an annual, 5-year or lifetime basis. The price of that license also differs depending on what size home they are working with, with “small” rollouts being classified as homes with fewer than 15 rooms. In terms of hardware costs, Josh.ai says that pricing varies but for most jobs, the average cost for users works out to be something like $500 per room.

Massive tech companies naturally design their products for massive audiences. For startups like Josh.ai this fact provides an in-road to design products that aren’t built for the common needs of a billion users. In fact, the selling point for plenty of their customers comes largely from the fact that they aren’t buying devices from Google, Amazon or Apple and hard-wiring microphones that feed back to them inside their home.

Though 95% of the startup’s business today focuses on residential, going forward, the company is also interested in scaling how their tech can be used in commercial scenarios like conference rooms or even elevators, the startup tells me.


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Google adds COVID-related health and safety info to Google Travel


Google today announced it’s adding more COVID-related health and safety information to its Google Travel booking service. Starting this week, when users search for hotels and vacation rental properties through Google Travel, they may see new information about COVID-19 safety precautions at the property — like enhanced cleaning procedures that may be in use, for example, or if there’s an option for a contact-free check-in, among other things.

The company said it’s working in partnership with hotel chains, vacation rental providers and other industry associations to source this health and safety data.

Individual hotel owners will be able to directly provide Google with their COVID-19 health and safety procedures via a new tool in Google My Business that lets them add health and safety information to their Business Profile.

At launch, several leading hotel chains are also partnering with Google on the new effort, including Marriott, Hilton, Comfort Inn (Choice Hotels), Holiday Inn (IHG), Best Western, Hyatt, Radisson and Four Seasons, the company tells TechCrunch.

Image Credits: Google Travel, screenshot via TechCrunch

On the vacation rental side, Google is working with a range of partners, including large vacation rental providers, medium-sized distributors and online travel agents, who are able to provide this health and safety information directly.

VRBO is among those partners, but Google says it’s not working with individual property owners at this time. It’s also not sourcing any of this data from entries in Google My Business, as it is with hotels — only what’s directly shared by partners.

Currently, this new COVID-related health and safety information is only available when users search for accommodations on google.com/travel — and not on other Google services, like Google Maps.

This update follows others Google made earlier this year in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Today, the company allows users to find hotels and vacation rentals with refundable rates on Google Travel, as well as track hotel and flight availability in a given area.

In September, Google also added a COVID-19 layer to Google Maps, but this provides data about the number of cases per 100,000 across a given map area. Earlier, it had added COVID-19 checkpoints and other transit data to Maps, as well as features to help businesses survive government shutdowns.

The health and safety information will roll out to Google Travel users worldwide.

 


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The Boox Poke 3 is my new favorite e-reader


There are plenty of e-readers to choose from out there, but never enough for me. I’m always questing for the one that will make me forget that there are others available, and in the Onyx Boox Poke 3, I think I have found it — at least for now. The Chinese e-paper device maker has nailed the size, the screen, and added a sprinkle of versatility that I didn’t know I was lacking.

The Poke 3 fits in the same “original flavor e-reader” category as the Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Clara HD: 6 inches, 300 PPI or so (which makes for very clear text), and somewhere between $100 and $200.

These readers fit easily in a pocket, unlike the larger Oasis and even larger Forma; they tend to lack anything but a power button and are very focused on books and saved articles.

But the Kindle and Clara both have major flaws. The Kindle is tied to Amazon in all the ways I can’t stand, including on-device ads by default, and the Clara… well, beside the screen, the hardware is honestly just bad. Kobo made my previous favorite e-reading device, the compact and flush-front Aura, and I’ve finally found a worthy successor to that beloved gadget.

The Poke 3 is the latest device to come from Boox, the e-reader line from parent company Onyx. The company has mostly been a presence in Southeast Asia, particularly its home country of China, so don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of it. Boox makes a wide variety of e-paper devices (which I will evaluate in a separate article), and the Poke 3 is the simplest and smallest of them.

A Boox Poke 3 e-reader in a hand.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

I’ll highlight the device’s strengths first. Most importantly, it is a lovely piece of hardware. The flush front is a pleasure to read on, as there is no raised bezel to shade the text or collect grime. The power button is well located and clicky. There’s just enough border to hold onto without worrying about smudging or activating the screen, and a bit of extra space at the bottom enables plenty of comfortable grips.

It’s thinner than the competition and the build quality is excellent. The front is hardened glass from partner Asahi, which will hopefully prevent it from needing a cover.

A Boox Poke 3 e-reader side-on.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

The finish is, to be honest, something of a fingerprint and oil magnet, and could be grippier. The Paperwhite has it beat on texture but I prefer the smooth back to the weird perforated one of the Clara.

At 150 grams it’s 16 lighter than the Clara and 32 lighter than the Paperwhite. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re holding a device for hours straight every little bit counts, and at this size it also helps with balance.

Its 6-inch screen is not meaningfully different from the Kindle or Kobo devices out there in terms of resolution or font rendering. I scrutinized the Poke 3 next to the Clara HD and Forma and found no differences that anyone would notice reading from 10-20 inches away.

Screen of a Boox Poke 3 e-reader

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

It does differ in its approach to illumination, though whether meaningfully so is a matter of opinion. Instead of having a brightness slider and a temperature slider, it has a warm and cool slider, and increasing or decreasing either one changes both the brightness and temperature. You can also turn either one off entirely or link them together so they are adjusted as one.

If it sounds more complicated… it is. I don’t see that it adds any real new capabilities, but once you get the feel for it, it isn’t that much harder to use, either. I do wish that when you linked the two sliders, they kept their positions relative to one another. The whole system seems a little baroque and I hope Boox streamlines it. That said, the quality of the light is equally good and once you dial it in, it looks great.

Type formatting is good, and has plenty of options for tweaking how any of the many (too many…) included fonts look, even weight and contrast adjustments to really fine tune them. Adding custom fonts is as easy as dragging and dropping them, just like documents.

The operating system of the Boox provides far more options than either Kobo or Kindle. Amazon keeps tight control over its ecosystem and outside of a handful of associated services the devices can’t do much. Kobo at least allows for more file formats to be loaded directly on, and now has excellent Pocket integration for saving articles from the web. Boox takes things two steps further with a custom Android launcher that you can download full apps onto.

A Boox Poke 3 e-reader

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

Now, there are really only so many apps that you actually might want on an e-reader like this one. And not everything works as well as I’d like. But for the first time I can actually get Simplenote on my e-reader.

It’s not as simple as it would be on an ordinary Android device, though. Because the Poke 3 comes from China, it doesn’t have access to Google services right off the bat. You can add it through settings, which isn’t hard, but there’s also a sideloading store built in with recent (if not quite brand new) install packages of popular, vetted apps for the device.

Let’s just admit right now that compared to the simplicity of Kindle and Kobo, this is already a bit out there. And whether you feel comfortable logging into a version of Evernote that you can’t (without a bit of work) verify the contents of… well, it’s not for everyone. But to be clear on this, Boox isn’t some fly-by-night operation — they may not be well known over here, but it’s hard to argue with the quality of the devices. The problem is simply that localizing an OS built for users in China has some fundamental challenges.

Image Credits: Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch

Fortunately for everyone, the basic capability to load books on there and read them is solid and it’s what you’d be doing most of the time. There may be a busy interface when you’re doing other stuff, but you can easily hide all indicators like progress and title while you’re reading, dedicating every square inch of the screen to actual reading.

It has 32 gigs of internal memory, making storage of audiobooks (it has Bluetooth for sound) and bulky documents easy, and connects quickly as a drive when you plug in its USB-C cord.

The Poke 3 will cost $189 when it ships next week, which is on the high end for this type of device. That’s $30 more than a Kindle Paperwhite and $70 more than a Clara HD. But I honestly think it is worth the premium. This is a better e-reader, period; despite the sometimes fussy interface, I enjoy using it, and appreciate that it provides capabilities that its competition doesn’t. If you need simple and don’t mind a cheap build, the Clara is a great cheaper option, but for a step up consider the Poke 3.


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Why I left edtech and got into gaming


Now that COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of digital education tools, edtech has become one of the hottest areas of investment.

As someone who has been in edtech for nearly 20 years, this sounds like the precise moment to capitalize on all the newfound interest. Which is why what I’m about to say might be surprising: I’m leaving edtech for the world of gaming with my new company, Solitaired.

I first got into edtech in high school, when a friend and I founded EasyBib, a website that helped students cite sources for their papers. At the time, we were just students who felt there had to be a better way than formatting tedious citations for research papers by hand. But as we dove into the business further, we realized there was a lot to like about bibliographies and education technology in general.

For one, the education market is large. There are more than 56 million K-16 students in the U.S., and over 1.3 billion globally. Federal, state and local governments spend an aggregate of 5% of GDP on education, and that doesn’t even include what students and parents spend on content and technology.

Secondly, it’s structured. Students generally all go through the same curriculum together. That means most students have the same problem in the same way; if you solve a problem for one group of users, you’ve probably solved it for most users.

The citation problem was just like that. When we sold our company to Chegg, we were already reaching four out of five students that needed bibliographies, or over 30 million students in the U.S. Edtech companies that help students with math, chemistry, homework help, tutoring and other curricular needs can build massive audiences quickly.

Edtech that’s part of the curriculum also has high engagement. EasyBib users stayed on our site for nearly ten minutes per session, creating one citation after another for their bibliographies. For direct-to-consumer edtech companies that are ad and subscription driven, this behavior creates many monetization opportunities.

While we grew fast, our endemic market opportunity was limited. Why? The strengths of edtech can also be its downsides, especially for a startup. On the user growth front, we focused on school relationships, marketing and SEO. But once we reached four out of every five students in the U.S., there wasn’t much more room to grow.

To increase engagement even further, we tried a number of things: encouraging more citation creation, adding research and note-taking features and building a Chrome extension to be more ever-present in the user’s research journey. Those efforts fell short too. Ultimately, the school calendar dictated how often students needed to use us, and we were constrained by the number of research papers teachers assigned.

These challenges can certainly be overcome. But as a startup, we had to decide if we wanted to pursue adjacencies and expansions ourselves. Ultimately, this realization was one of the reasons we decided to sell our company to Chegg, which had a wider user base and product synergies that we couldn’t achieve on our own. As anyone who follows Chegg might know, they’ve been very successful in accelerating the edtech digital transformation.

When we began thinking about our second business, we had these lessons in the back of our mind. That’s when we discovered gaming.


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Apple updates Mac Mini with Apple-designed M1 chip


In addition to the MacBook Air, Apple also introduced a new Mac Mini. It runs Apple’s first custom chipset specifically designed for Mac computers, the M1. It still features the same familiar design, but it now uses an Arm-based chip.

“If you compare a Mac mini to the top-selling desktop in this price range, the Mini is one-tenth its size and yet it’s up to five times faster,” Hardware Engineering Senior Manager Julie Broms said.

The M1 features four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. It uses a 5nm process. There are eight GPU cores with 128 execution units, which should lead to peak performance of 2.6 teraflops. There is also Apple’s neural engine for machine learning tasks.

According to Apple, the new Mac Mini is up to three times faster than the previous model when it comes to CPU performance. As for GPU performance, it is up to six times faster. ML acceleration is also up to 15 times faster.

At the back of the device, you’ll find an Ethernet port, two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports that support a 6K display, an HDMI 2.0 port, two USB A ports and a 3.5mm headphone port.

Pricing starts at $699 and the new Mac Mini will be available next week.

Image Credits: Apple


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Apple will release macOS Big Sur on November 12


Apple’s upcoming desktop and laptop operating system, macOS Big Sur, will be released on November 12, the company announced today.

macOS Big Sur — which stays with the company’s California-themed naming scheme — will arrive with a new and refreshed user interface, new features, and performance improvements.

Much of the features in iOS 14 are porting over — including improved Message threading and in-line replies and a redesigned Maps app. The new Apple software also comes with a new Control Center, with quick access to brightness, volume, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

Safari also gets a much needed lick of paint. It comes with new privacy and security features, including an in-built intelligence tracking prevention that stops trackers following you across the web, and password monitoring to save you from using previously breached passwords.

If you’re wondering what macOS Big Sir is like to work on, TechCrunch’s Brian Heater took the new software for a spin in August.

macOS Big Sur will be supported on Macs and MacBooks dating back to 2013.

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Apple will release macOS Big Sur on November 12


Apple’s upcoming desktop and laptop operating system, macOS Big Sur, will be released on November 12, the company announced today.

macOS Big Sur — which stays with the company’s California-themed naming scheme — will arrive with a new and refreshed user interface, new features, and performance improvements.

Much of the features in iOS 14 are porting over — including improved Message threading and in-line replies and a redesigned Maps app. The new Apple software also comes with a new Control Center, with quick access to brightness, volume, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

Safari also gets a much needed lick of paint. It comes with new privacy and security features, including an in-built intelligence tracking prevention that stops trackers following you across the web, and password monitoring to save you from using previously breached passwords.

If you’re wondering what macOS Big Sir is like to work on, TechCrunch’s Brian Heater took the new software for a spin in August.

macOS Big Sur will be supported on Macs and MacBooks dating back to 2013.

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Huawei reportedly set to sell Honor budget phone division for $15B


Following weeks of rumors surrounding a potential sale, Huawei has reportedly struck a deal to divest itself of its Honor brand. A new report out today from Reuters notes that the embattled hardware maker will sell the budget unit to a consortium of buyers that includes the government of the city of Shenzhen and Digital China, a phone distributor.

The report, which cites “people familiar with the matter,” puts the price tag for the Honor unit at $15.2 billion. Honor’s new owners will reportedly keep much of the brand’s 7,000 employees (management included) in tact, with plans to take the company public in around three years. The Honor brand has largely focused on low-cost devices, with sales in China, Europe and the U.S. This deal would likely find Huawei focusing more exclusively on high-end products under its own brand.

While the deal has been rumored for some time now, its seeming conclusion comes in the wake of Joe Biden’s presidential election win. It seems clear from Huawei’s decision to press on with the all-cash deal that the company doesn’t believe its international fortunes will change immediately under a new U.S. president.

The news comes in the wake of ongoing difficulties tied to U.S. sanctions. Huawei’s inability to access technologies from companies like Google have proven to be a major hit for the world’s second largest phone maker. While the company has managed to maintain solid sales in its native China, even those have taken a hit amid its struggles.


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