Changing The Race
China's Huawei has outclassed Apple to become number two in the smartphone market. This means that the company occupied the second largest market share in the global smartphone market for two consecutive months in June and July. As a result, some analysts say that Huawei put an end to the two-frontrunner race by Samsung and Apple.
Huawei surpassed Apple in June and July with a market share of over 10% in the global smartphone market, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research on September 7. In the same period, Samsung Electronics was on a downward spiral but widened its gaps with the second and third companies while chalking up a share of more than 20%.
Recently forecasts were steadily made that Huawei will catch up with Apple. Already in the second quarter, Huawei recorded an 11% market share, closely trailing Apple (12%).
Apple sold 41 million iPhones in the second quarter. Unlike Huawei which posted a growth rate of over 20%, Apple's growth rate stood at 2%. Traditionally, Apple records weak sales in the third quarter.
iPhone sales volume is likely to decline from the second quarter due to consumers waiting for the launch of a new iPhone model.
Apple will take the wrap off the iPhone X (tentative name) with a big change in its performance and design in honor of the 10th anniversary on September 12. Huawei will unveil the Mate 10, a big screen smartphone equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) Kirin 970 Processor in October this year.
Huawei is aiming to be No. 1 in the global smartphone market in 2021. The company dominated the Chinese market and has been concentrating on overseas markets such as Europe and Canada.
In addition to Huawei, Chinese smartphone makers such as Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi are also catching up with Samsung Electronics and Apple fast. The sales volume of these companies, which ranked 4th, 5th and 6th following Huawei in the second quarter, has been growing at 39%, 45% and 52%, respectively.
On top of that, Counterpoint Research said that Apple's iPhone 7 and 7 Plus remained the top best sellers in July. Oppo's flagship model R11, and mid-price A57 ranked third and fourth, respectively.
Huawei came in second in overall global market shares but no Huawei phones made the top 10 sellers. "This is blamed on the diversification of Huawei's SKU portfolio and a lack of popular models," Counterpoint said. "Huawei needs to overhaul its product lineup through a portfolio improvement."