Chinese smartphone company Honor, which gained full independence from Huawei Technologies Co earlier this year, has signed an agreement with Microsoft and will use Windows 10 as its official laptop operating system across the globe.

The move marks the first time for Honor to announce cooperation with a foreign company after it was sold by Huawei, and it could pave the way for more partnerships such as with the US chip giant Qualcomm Inc in the near future to solve Honor's supply issues, experts said.

Honor said in a statement that the new generation of Honor MagicBook series products equipped with Microsoft Windows 10 will be launched in China in January 2021. The Honor notebook MagicBook Pro equipped with Microsoft Windows 10 and Intel Core i5 processors will land in overseas markets in January.

Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, said "Honor is very pleased to reach a global cooperation with Microsoft. Through mainstream operating systems and technologies, we will bring consumers PC products with outstanding design, powerful performance and first-class experience. Honor insists on taking consumers as the core and maintaining a fully open attitude and will work together with global industrial chain partners to create a new world of wisdom for everyone."

Huawei sold Honor in mid-November to a Chinese consortium of over 30 agents and dealers to ensure the brand's survival. The decision came as Huawei was facing severe pressure, due to the persistent unavailability of technical components needed for its mobile phone business.

The US chip giant Qualcomm said earlier that it was having discussions with Honor when asked about whether it can ship chips to the new company. But there is no official announcement about the cooperation yet.