Analysts: Huawei has overtaken Apple in global smartphone market

According to market researchers, Huawei overtook Apple in the smartphone market in the past quarter. The Chinese manufacturer has shipped 54.2 million smartphones; Apple delivered 43.3 million. This puts Huawei in second place after Samsung.

Huawei’s market share in the global smartphone market was 15.8 percent in the past quarter, according to analyst firm IDC. Last year it was only 11 percent in the same period. Huawei itself does not disclose details about deliveries; these are analysts’ estimates. Analyst firm Canalys also says that Huawei has overtaken Apple and comes to an estimate of 54 million Huawei smartphones delivered in the past quarter.

Huawei’s global market share increased mainly due to good sales in China. In its home country, the manufacturer is in first place. According to IDC, Huawei has a market share of 27 percent there.

Samsung is still the market leader, according to IDC the South Korean manufacturer delivered 71.5 million units and Canalys keeps it at 73 million units. Deliveries did fall compared to the same quarter last year. Samsung itself said in the presentation of its quarterly figures that this was caused by disappointing sales of the Galaxy S9 and S9 +. Samsung now has a market share of about 20.9 percent, according to the analysts.

Another manufacturer that is making great strides is Xiaomi. According to IDC, that brand is now number one in India, ahead of Samsung. Xiaomi is now in fourth place in the global smartphone market, with a share of 9.3 percent. The manufacturer delivered 31.9 million smartphones in the past quarter, according to IDC. In the same quarter last year, there were 21.4 million.

IDC estimates that a total of 342 million smartphones were shipped worldwide in the second quarter of 2018, a decrease of 1.8 percent from the same quarter a year earlier. It is the third quarter in a row in which deliveries worldwide slightly decreased.