Mobile Phones: Huawei takes over because the world’s largest smartphone maker - albeit briefly

Defying all odds

Huawei has been within the news for the last few years, mostly for its ongoing battle with the Trump administration which choked supplies of critical hardware and software. However, amidst all this brouhaha, the corporate became the world's largest smartphone maker, overtaking Samsung during April.

GizmoChina has reported that Huawei accounted for 19% of worldwide smartphone shipments while Samsung’s numbers dipped to 17% at an equivalent time in April this year, giving Huawei the position for a quick time and this has been confirmed to GizmoChina by Counterpoint’s VP of Research Neil Shah.

While the US administration was busy flexing its muscle and forcing its allies, including India, to boycott Huawei from the all-important 5G deals for alleged espionage and data theft.

The Chinese company, on the opposite hand, has fought multiple battles to remain afloat. Not only has it found ways to stay selling its products, it's won critical 5G accept the united kingdom and while it's been barred to source critical components from the US linked companies, Huawei has not only been busy finding alternate solutions but was even ready to topple bigwigs Samsung and Apple to become world’s leading smartphone brand in 2020, albeit briefly.

World's leading smartphone brand?

In spite of the worldwide lockdown thanks to the raging Covid-19 pandemic, Huawei edged past Samsung within the number of smartphones shipped during April 2020.

Factors that have helped Huawei rake an enormous number within the Chinese domestic market include a robust nationalist sentiment that resulted in Chinese user's and companies’ preference for Huawei over any international smartphone brands. This retaliatory stance was in response to the American government’s decision of banning Huawei within the US.

Similarly, coronavirus-led lockdowns across various countries just like the US, India, Latin America, and Europe resulted in weaker sales numbers for Samsung. a number of these countries, including India, reported zero smartphone sales during the 75-day odd lockdown period and while factories and businesses sprung back to life in China as early as March giving Huawei a rare and brief window to overtake Samsung’s numbers.

While Huawei's moment of glory was short-lived, the corporate is under tremendous stress thanks to the declining numbers in overseas markets. albeit Huawei is rumoured to be in talks with multiple companies including Samsung to urge chipsets for its smartphones manufactured, this move will only help the corporate stay afloat in China, it’s the sales outside China that's crippled thanks to the shortage of Google Mobile Services (GMS) on its phones.

With the worldwide markets resuming normalcy, Samsung’s numbers also are sure to go up again while Huawei’s digits might not change substantially.

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