Huawei's smartphone shipments exceed 200 million units!

Huawei remains the number one smartphone brand in Greater China and in the top three among many European markets.

Huawei Consumer Business Group has announced that its smartphone shipments for 2018 exceeded 200 million units, constituting a new record for the company.

The shipments include the Huawei P20 and Mate 20 series, as well as the Honor 10. In the second and third quarters of 2018, Huawei became the world's second largest smartphone manufacturer, with a global market share of 14.6 per cent. In the past eight years, Huawei's smartphone shipments have increased from three million units in 2010 to 200 million units this year, a 66-fold growth approximately.Data from the International Data Corporation's (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker showed that when it comes to the global smartphone market, Huawei is ranked second among the top three players in the world, trailing behind Samsung which takes the lead. In terms of shipments, Huawei overtook Apple in the second quarter of 2018 and maintained its lead comfortably in the third quarter of the year as well.

In addition, Gartner's research showed that while the sales of smartphones are slowing down for most mobile phone manufacturers, Huawei saw demand for its smartphones grow by 43 per cent in the third quarter of 2018. Huawei remains the number one smartphone brand in Greater China and in the top three among many European markets.

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, stated that: "Looking to the future, Huawei's consumer business will focus on the core concept of 'consumer-centric', and will dare to keep innovating, and make every effort to become a pioneer and leader in the next wave of the smartphone revolution, as well as constantly create new value for consumers, let our consumers better enjoy their lives, and truly make Huawei a brand that is beloved by consumers the world over."

At present, Huawei smartphones are being used by more than 500 million consumers in more than 170 countries around the world. According to research by Gartner, the third quarter of 2018 saw Chinese brands Huawei and Xiaomi help drive global smartphone sales. Overall, sales of smartphones to end users grew 1.4 per cent in the third quarter of 2018 to reach 389 million units.

"If we had taken both Huawei and Xiaomi out of the global smartphone vendors list, smartphone sales to end users would have declined by 5.2 per cent," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "Led by low-price smartphones, enhanced camera features and high-quality resolution displays, top Chinese mobile phone manufacturers boosted their sales across emerging markets in the third quarter of 2018.

"The gap between Samsung and Huawei continues to shrink, as Huawei expands aggressively by investing in branding and distribution in the emerging markets of the Middle East, Asia/Pacific and Africa. Huawei is, for example, aggressively positioning its affordable Honor series smartphones to drive the shift from feature phones to smartphones in those markets," added Gupta.