BEIJING — Chinese language smartphone firm Honor on Thursday introduced backing from new traders because the Huawei spinoff prepares for an preliminary public providing.

The brand new backers are: China Telecom — one of many main telecommunications operators within the nation — CICC Capital, Chinese language enterprise capital agency Cornerstone and SDG, a fund linked to a Shenzhen financial zone. Honor stated its present companions additionally made a brand new funding spherical by an entity referred to as Jinshi Xingyao.

Honor stated earlier this yr it deliberate to begin altering its shareholder construction within the fourth quarter, after which it could begin the IPO course of “at an acceptable time.”

The corporate has not stated the place it could checklist. Honor announced its IPO plans in November 2023.

Honor spun off from Chinese language telecommunications big Huawei in November 2020 after the mother or father firm was hit by U.S. sanctions. Huawei stated it doesn’t maintain any shares in Honor or have involvement in enterprise selections.

Final week, Honor revealed the following model of its working system can use AI to imitate actions on a touchscreen, resembling opening an app to order coffee delivery. The corporate on Wednesday launched its new Magic7 collection of telephones that may use the AI options in China.

Slightly below one-third of Honor’s gross sales got here from outdoors China within the first half of this yr, in response to Counterpoint.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.