Huawei is to launch a new sub-brand called Osta, or Xingmang in Chinese, six years after selling its Honor budget smartphone unit in late 2020 in an effort to protect the business from crippling US sanctions.

The Osta sub-brand is to launch on 20 November, said Richard Yu Chengdong, chair of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, in a social media post.

The Weibo post, significantly, included a tag indicating it was sent from an “Osta O1 Pro”, a device previously rumoured to be the Osta’s first product, a bar-style handset.

Widescreen smartphone

The O1 Pro is believed to use a widescreen format similar to Huawei’s flagship Pura X View.

Huawei also makes a foldable version of the Pura X, with a widescreen format similar to that of Apple’s iPhone Duo.

The Osta launch underscores Huawei’s comeback in recent years, beginning with the roll-out of the Mate 60 Pro smartphone in late 2023 that used an in-house designed and domestically manufactured Kirin processor.

US sanctions bar Huawei from accessing advanced smartphone chips, the Android operating system, and other technologies that it previously used in its line-up.

In the third quarter of 2026, Huawei was mainland China’s top smartphone maker with a 21.3 percent share of the market, ahead of Apple with 19.5 percent, as well as domestic companies including its own former unit, Honor, according to Counterpoint.

More recently Huawei has developed specialised chips and compute clusters for AI workloads, competing directly with Nvidia, whose most advanced chips are barred from sale in China.