Competing with Apple for No. 2 Spot
Huawei, the largest telecom equipment manufacturer in the world, supplied more than 200 million smartphones this year, hitting an all-time high in the company's history, the South China Morning Post reported on Dec.
For reference, the company’s total shipments were 153 million units last year. Huawei increased its smartphone shipments by approximately 30 percent this year. From January to September this year, Apple supplied about 130.4 million smartphones. Depending on Apple’s shipments for the rest of this year, Huawei can rank second in the world in terms of smartphone shipments for this year.
Huawei, which has competed in global markets mainly with inexpensive phones, is currently trying to turn itself into a high-end smartphone manufacturer by supplying phones priced at over two million won (US$1,800) to emerging markets and China. Huawei CEO Richard Yu said in his recent interview with CNBC that his company will become the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer in 2020.
At present, Samsung Electronics is the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. Its annual smartphone shipments are approximately 300 million units. A change in ranking is unlikely for the time being with American and European consumers tending to prefer Samsung smartphones to Huawei.