Chinese Smartphone maker Huawei overtook the Korean smartphone giant Samsung to ship the maximum number of smartphone devices in the Quarter 2 of the year 2020. Even Though the company saw a decline of 5% year-on-year, it shipped 55.8 Million devices. Its Major Competitor Samsung has shipped 53.7 million devices as the company saw a dip of 30 percent as compared to the same quarter last year. For the First Time Huawei has become the Biggest Smartphone Player in the world in the second quarter after overtaking Samsung and Apple. The majority of the sales came from china as its international business suffers due to the U.S. Sanctions.
But analysts cast doubt whether this was sustainable given the fact that Huawei’s overseas markets outside of China took a hit as a result of U.S. Sanctions against the company. Huawei sold over 70% of its Smartphones in Mainland China in its second quarter. Meanwhile, the Smartphones shipments in the International market plunged 27% year-on-year in the April-June Quarter. Europe being a key region for the Huawei sales, the Company’s Smartphone Market Share fell sharply to 16% in the second quarter versus 22% in the same period last year. Huawei is the Third largest Smartphone maker in Europe after Samsung and Apple.
The Huawei’s growth in the second quarter was built on efforts to expand its share in China, the second largest economy in the world. Huawei has taken the full advantage of the Chinese economic recovery to restart its smartphone business. Samsung has a very small market in China with less than 1% market share and has seen its core markets like Brazil, India, United States and Europe demolished by the outbreak of the corona virus outbreaks and the subsequent lockdowns.
Strength in China will not only be enough to sustain Huawei at the top once the global economy starts to recover again. Huawei was placed on the U.S. Entity List in a blacklist which restricted its access to the American Technology. The Chinese telecommunications giant faced further pressure this year from Washington USA. A new rule introduced in May by the USA requires foreign Manufacturers using U.S. Chipmaking equipment to get a license before to sell its semiconductors to Huawei.
In China where Google services such as the Gmail or the search engine and the other applications of google are effectively blocked, it is not a big deal in the Chinese markets as the Chinese consumers are not used to using these products. However, in international markets, not having Google is a tremendous blow.
