In the second quarter of 2018, Huawei surpassed Apple to secure the number two worldwide smartphone vendor position for the first time ever, according to Gartner, moving Apple into the third spot. Overall, sales of smartphones to end users grew 2% in the second quarter of 2018 to reach 374 million units.
“Huawei’s smartphone sales grew 38.6% in the second quarter of 2018. Huawei continues to bring innovative features into its smartphones and expand its smartphone portfolio to cover larger consumer segments,” Gartner research director, Anshul Gupta said.
“Its investment into channels, brand building and positioning of the Honor devices helped drive sales. Huawei is shipping its Honor smartphones into 70 markets worldwide and is emerging as Huawei’s key growth driver.”
Huawei Mate 10 smartphone
Samsung maintained the number one global smartphone vendor spot, declining 12.7% in the second quarter of 2018. “Samsung faces slowing global smartphone demand and ever-growing competition from Chinese manufacturers,” Gupta said. “The slowing demand for its flagship smartphones left Samsung with lower profitability. It now expects the Note 9 smartphone to revive growth.”
Apple’s performance was flat in the second quarter of 2018 with 0.9% growth. “Minimal incremental value in Apple’s current-generation flagship iPhones led to slower growth in the second quarter of 2018,” Gupta said.
“Demand for the iPhone X has started to slow down much earlier than when other new models were introduced. Growing competition from Chinese brands and consumers’ greater expectations for phone value is putting immense pressure on Apple to deliver enhanced value on their premium iPhones to foster growth,” he added.