China’s biggest smartphone vendor Huawei has kept its growth momentum in its home market, at the expense of all other top vendors. The Shenzhen-based company has expanded its share to a record 42.4% at home in the third quarter, according to a report by market research firm Canalys.
Huawei shipped around 41.5 million phones in this quarter, posting a staggering 66% year-over-year growth.
The company’s 5G and smartphone businesses have been under siege owing to the US restriction, one of the reasons that led the company to direct more resources to its home turf, which buttressed its domestic dominance.
Huawei’s strong and sustained growth comes at a time when the overall smartphone shipments in China (mainland) dropped 3% to 97.8 million in Q3 compared with the same period last year. The Chinese smartphone market has been slowing down in recent years.
Vivo and its sibling brand Oppo—spinoffs from Guangdong-based BBK electronics—ranked second and third with market shares of 17.9% and 17.4%, respectively. Xiaomi followed with a mere 9% share, down from 13.1% one year earlier.
Meanwhile, Apple managed to safeguard its No.5 position on the back of the popularity of the newly-released iPhone 11, which made up nearly 40% of the company’s shipments in the latest quarter.
“But it faces a looming challenge, as Chinese vendors and operators are set to drive heavy marketing and promotions around 5G in the next two quarters,” said Canalys analyst Louis Liu. “This could steal its thunder.”
Despite pushing out new phone models continuously, Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi, as well as Apple all saw their shares down over 20% annually in Q3. In addition, Huawei is expected to be able to further consolidate its dominance since it now has more power to negotiate with the supply chain and the 5G network rollout will also contribute.
Globally, Korean conglomerate Samsung still led the scene with a market share of 22.7% in the second quarter of 2019, according to industry data provider Statista. Yet to be severely impaired by the US ban, Huawei was the runner-up, holding 17.6%, followed by Apple’s 10.1%.
He Gang, president of Huawei’s smartphone division told Chinese media last week that Huawei’s worldwide shipment would reach 240 million by the end of this year. The company shipped 206 million units globally last year, according to research institution IDC.
