We’ve previously reported how Huawei, undaunted by the $1 trillion Apple juggernaut, has moved into the number two position as ranked by worldwide smartphone shipments and that the China-based smartphone maker in fact wants to blow past Samsung to be number one by the end of 2019.
Underscoring that ranking, here comes another analyst report pegging Huawei to the number two spot, elbowing the iPhone maker down to number three in terms of global smartphone sales. The Gartner data puts Huawei at number two for the second quarter, having sold a little less than 50 million devices to give it a 13.3 percent market share.
That’s up from a 9.8 percent market share in the year-ago period and ahead of Apple’s 11.9 percent market share for the second quarter (which was actually down from a 12.1 percent market share in the second quarter of 2017 for Apple).
The Gartner data shows Samsung holding on to the number one spot for the quarter, even though it shed 12.7 percent to end the period with around 72.3 million devices sold and a 19.3 market share versus 22.6 last year.
Here’s what’s going on with Huawei, per a TechCrunch report today, which is going from strength to strength while the Samsung and Apple numbers show year-over-year decline: “In recent years Huawei has been one of a handful of Chinese OEMs bucking the trend of a slowing global smartphone market. And Gartner’s data suggests Huawei’s smartphone sales grew 38.6 per cent in the second quarter.
“As we noted earlier this month, when other analysts reported Huawei outstripping Apple on smartphone shipments in Q2, the handset maker has built momentum for its mid-range Honor handset brand while performing solidly at the premium end too, with devices such as the P20 Pro (albeit while copypasting Apple’s iPhone X ‘notch’ screen design in that instance.)”
Gartner research director Anshul Gupta released a statement praising Huawei’s continued introduction of “innovative features” into its smartphones and the expansion of its portfolio to cover larger consumer segments. Anshul adds that demand for Apple’s iPhone X seems to be slowing down “much earlier than when other new models were introduced.”
In our report a few weeks ago about Huawei’s ascendance, we included this tidbit from Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group who had this to say recently about the company’s ambitions: “It’s no question that we become the number two next year. In Q4 next year, it’s possible we become number one.” It will certainly be interesting to watch if Huawei can keep its status firmly entrenched — if it can hang on to these gains and capitalize on weakness among rivals.
Among other data points from the new Gartner report, meanwhile, we should also note this lopsided stat that shouldn’t come as a surprise: Google’s Android operating system keeps growing its lead over iOS, which in the second quarter stood at an almost 90 percent market share, compared to 11.9 percent for Apple’s mobile operating system.
