Huawei overtakes Apple in smartphone market

The consensus is in: Chinese telecoms vendor Huawei has knocked Apple out of the number two position in terms of global smartphone shipments, according to three different research firms.

IDC, Strategy Analytics and Canalys have all released data indicating that Huawei shipped 54.2 million units during the June quarter, representing a year-on-year growth of around 41%.

IDC said this took Huawei's market share for the quarter up to 15.8%, compared to 12.1% for Apple.

Apple also experienced positive growth during the quarter, shipping 41 million iPhones, but this represents just a year-on-year growth of just 1%.

While Samsung maintained a comfortable lead in the market, its total shipments declined by around 10.4% year on year to 71.5 million units.

“The continued growth of Huawei is impressive, to say the least, as is its ability to move into markets where, until recently, the brand was largely unknown,” IDC Worldwide Mobile Device Tracker Program Vice President Ryan Reith said.

“It is worth noting that Apple moved into the top position each of the last two holiday quarters following its product refresh, so it’s likely we’ll see continued movement among the top-ranked companies in 2018 and beyond.”

Meanwhile, at least part of the slow performance for Apple during the quarter is down to seasonality, according to Canalys UK Senior Analyst Ben Stanton.

“Q2 has always been seasonally weak for Apple. While the iPhone X succeeded in generating volume in the previous quarters despite its hefty price tag, it has been unable to sustain that volume this quarter,” he said.

“But for an Apple flagship, this is normal. In addition to this, models such as the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are also losing steam, given a high sell-in in Q1. But an uptick in iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, helped in part by the Product Red campaign, was enough to offset this trend.”

But in a statement, Strategy Analytics said Apple “will need to innovate new designs for the iPhone if it wants to grow future volumes, perhaps by adding new features such as dual SIM cards or foldable screens”.

Meanwhile, IDC has projected that global smartphone sales declined 1.8% to 342 million units during the quarter. Strategy Analytics believes the decline was even greater at 3% and estimates that 350.4 million units were shipped over the period.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Oleksiy Mark

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