Huawei overtakes Samsung to become the world’s number-one smartphone seller for the first time despite US sanctions.
China’s Huawei has overtaken Samsung to become the number-one smartphone seller worldwide in the second quarter on the back of strong domestic demand, an industry tracker has said.
The telecom giant, which has seen its overseas sales fall due to Washington’s sanctions, shipped 55.8million devices in the period, according to analyst firm Canalys.
It beat South Korean firm Samsung after selling over 2million more handsets than the former industry leader, statistics showed.
The data marked the first time in nine years that a company other than Samsung or Apple has led the market, analysts from Canalys said on Thursday.
Washington has essentially barred Huawei from the US market and waged a global campaign to isolate the company.
The British government bowed to growing US pressure and pledged earlier this month to remove Huawei from its 5G network by 2027, despite warnings of retaliation from Beijing.
The politically-fraught change requires companies to stop buying new 5G equipment from Huawei starting next year and strip out existing gear by the end of 2027.
More than 70 percent of Huawei smartphones are now sold in the country, Canalys stated.
In comparison, Samsung, which shifted 53.7million globally in the second quarter, has a very small share of the Chinese market.
Huawei said in a statement it was a sign of ‘exceptional resilience’.
Overseas shipments, however, fell nearly a third in the second quarter and Canalys analyst Mo Jia warned that strength in China alone ‘will not be enough to sustain Huawei at the top once the global economy starts to recover’.
‘Its major channel partners in key regions, such as Europe, are increasingly wary of ranging Huawei devices, taking on fewer models, and bringing in new brands to reduce risk,’ Mo said.
Huawei – the world’s top producer of telecoms networking equipment – has become a pivotal issue in the geopolitical standoff between Beijing and Washington, which claims the firm poses a significant cybersecurity threat.
