China’s Huawei overtook Apple to secure the No. 2 worldwide smartphone vendor position for the first time in Q2, according to research house Gartner, Inc., with sales soaring 38.6 percent in the quarter. Apple dropped to the No. 3 spot.
The shift came as global sales of smartphones to end users grew two percent in Q2 of 2018 to reach 374 million units. Apple remains highly competitive on Huawei’s turf however – reporting double-digit growth in China in the last quarter.
Cash-rich Huawei has been pouring R&D money into smartphones, spending some $13.7 billion on research and development in total in 2017 and now holds a total of 74,307 patents across its different product lines.
In 2017, Huawei shipped a total of 153 million smartphones.
Some of the Huawei smartphones available in the UK market
Huawei Smartphones: Shipped to 70 Markets, “Key Growth Driver”
“Huawei continues to bring innovative features into its smartphones and expand its smartphone portfolio to cover larger consumer segments,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.
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He added: “Its investment into channels, brand building and positioning of the Honor devices helped drive sales. Huawei is shipping its Honor smartphones into 70 markets worldwide and is emerging as Huawei’s key growth driver.”
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Worldwide Top 5 Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q18 (Thousands of Units)
| Vendor |
2Q18
Units |
2Q18 Market Share (%) |
2Q17
Units |
2Q17 Market Share (%) |
| Samsung | 72,336.4 | 19.3 | 82,855.3 | 22.6 |
| Huawei | 49,846.5 | 13.3 | 35,964.3 | 9.8 |
| Apple | 44,715.1 | 11.9 | 44,314.8 | 12.1 |
| Xiaomi | 32,825.5 | 8.8 | 21,178.5 | 5.8 |
| OPPO | 28,511.1 | 7.6 | 26,092.5 | 7.1 |
| Others | 146,096.1 | 39.0 | 156,190.8 | 42.6 |
| Total | 374,330.6 | 100.0 | 366,596.1 | 100.0 |
Samsung maintained the No. 1 global smartphone vendor spot, declining 12.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2018 (see Table 1).
“Samsung faces slowing global smartphone demand and ever-growing competition from Chinese manufacturers,” said Mr Gupta. “The slowing demand for its flagship smartphones left Samsung with lower profitability. It now expects the Note 9 smartphone to revive growth.”
Huawei reported annual revenues of $92.5 billion (based on year-end exchange rates) in the last fiscal year, an increase of 15.7 percent over 2016. Net profits were $7.3 billion, up 28.1 percent year-on-year.
