Huawei surpassed Apple in the second quarter to become the second-largest global smartphone vendor for the first time, Gartner confirmed. This comes after a month when IDC reported that Huawei had overtaken Apple to become the second largest smartphone maker by shipments.
Overall, sales of smartphones to end users grew 2 percent in the second quarter of 2018 to reach 374 million units, the market researcher said.
Huawei’s smartphone sales grew 38.6 percent in the second quarter to nearly 50 million units, giving it a global market share of 13.3 percent, up from 10.5 percent in Q1 and 9.8 percent in Q2 2017. Gartner said Huawei continues to bring innovative features into its smartphones and expand its smartphone portfolio to cover larger consumer segments, driven by its investment into channels, brand building and positioning of the Honor devices. The Honor smartphones, now available in 70 markets worldwide, are emerging as Huawei’s key growth driver, the market researcher said.
Apple fell back to number three, with its share down slightly year-on-year to 11.9 percent. Apple’s quarterly sales were largely flat, at 44.7 million. Gartner said little incremental value in Apple’s current-generation flagship iPhones led to slower growth in the second quarter, and 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,” the market researcher said.
| Vendor | Q2 2018 Units | Q2 2018 Market Share (%) | Q2 2017 Units | Q2 2017 Market Share (%) |
| Samsung | 72,336.4 | 19.3 | 82,855.3 | 22.6 |
| Huawei | 49,846.5 | 13.3 | 35,964.3 | 9.8 |
| Apple | 44,715.1 | 11.9 | 44,314.8 | 12.1 |
| Xiaomi | 32,825.5 | 8.8 | 21,178.5 | 5.8 |
| OPPO | 28,511.1 | 7.6 | 26,092.5 | 7.1 |
| Others | 146,096.1 | 39.0 | 156,190.8 | 42.6 |
| Total | 374,330.6 | 100.0 | 366,596.1 | 100.0 |
Worldwide Top 5 Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q18 (Thousands of Units). Source: Gartner (August 2018)
Samsung remained by far the biggest smartphone seller, with an estimated market share of 19.3 percent. However, its share was down from 22.6 percent a year ago, after a 12.7 percent fall in sales to 72.3 million units. Gartner said Samsung is suffering from competition from Chinese brands, as well as lower profitability on its flagship devices.
Xiaomi showed the strongest growth in the quarter, with sales up around 50 percent to 32.8 million units. Its market share rose to 8.8 percent from 5.8 percent a year ago. Oppo came fifth, with sales of 28.5 million smartphones and a market share of 7.6 percent.
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Via Gartner, TelecomPaper
