3 Smartphone Sub-Brands You Might Not Know About

You have probably heard of Itel – the smartphone brand was named one of the most “student-friendly” ones last year. Itel handsets are affordable and they also look great. They are the perfect handsets powering Africa’s digital revolution. What you might not have known is that Itel is a sub-brand – along with Infinix and Tecno. All three of them are manufactured by the Hong Kong-based smartphone maker Transsion Holdings China.

There are many other smartphone sub-brands in the market, often with major and well-known smartphone manufacturers behind them. Let’s introduce a few of them to you below.

Mijia

You probably already know that Xiaomi recently launched a sub-brand for a new smartphone called POCO F1.  This same company also have a few handsets that it has built for third parties like the Black Shark, a gaming smartphone for Black Shark Technology which a Chinese gaming company that will presumably form part of the Mi ecosystem. What you might not know is that it has its own brand of other devices that are available under the Mijia subbrand.

One of the most interesting products released by the company under the Mijia brand is a smartphone gimbal that can accommodate a 86 by 200 mm smartphone. The gimbal – a pivoted support allowing the rotation of the device held – has three axes, and can be used for time-lapse photography, automatic tracking of a selected subject up to 360 degrees, has a built-in 5,000 mAh power bank, and can be mounted on a tripod, too.

Honor

In the quarter that ended on June 30, Huawei has taken over Apple as the second biggest smartphone maker in the world. Its sales volume has exploded recently, thanks in part to its “Honor” sub-brand that has seen its international sales grow by 150% in the first half of this year. Honor was already a well-known brand in China – Huawei focused the brand on the country – now the company successfully pushed it into the rest of the world.

The most popular handset this year was Honor 10, selling more than 3 million units all over the world.

Nubia

ZTE Corporation is one of the largest telecom equipment manufacturer in China, operating three business units: carrier networks, terminals, and telecommunication. In 2012, the company was the fourth largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, building branded handsets for carriers like Vodafone.

ZTE has a smartphone sub-brand called Nubia that made a name for itself in 2016 when it hired football star Christiano Ronaldo to promote the company. This year, it has made the headlines once again when it announced a gaming smartphone to compete with the Razer Phone.