Huawei beats Apple to become the world’s number two smartphone seller

Huawei has overtaken Apple as the world’s second-largest smartphone retailer, according to data from multiple analysts.

Huawei shipped around 54.2m smartphones in the second quarter, analysts estimated, a 40pc jump on the previous year. Meanwhile, Apple shipped 41.3m phones, up only 0.7pc on the previous year.

The data comes from analyst businesses International Data Corporation (IDC), Counterpoint Research, IHS Markit and Canalys. All the firms reported that Huawei had overtaken Apple in the most recent financial quarter.

Samsung remains the world’s top smartphone seller according to the number of phones it ships every quarter. IDC analysts said that the business shipped 73m smartphones, far above Huawei’s figure.

“The arrival of Huawei in the second position marks the first quarter since 2Q10 where Apple has not been the number one or two smartphone company in terms of market share,” IDC said.

Huawei is a Chinese technology company which has typically relied on low-cost smartphones, rather than premium devices that can generate the same levels of profit as Apple and Samsung’s phones. It operates the Honor smartphone brand, which sells phones for under £200.

The company also produces internet infrastructure hardware, which a report by the British government warned in July could pose a security risk. “Identification of shortcomings in Huawei’s engineering processes have exposed new risks in the UK telecommunication networks and long-term challenges in mitigation and management,” the report said.
This isn’t the first time that Huawei has overtaken Apple to become the world’s number two smartphone seller. In September, it reached the same position, but strong iPhone sales eventually saw Apple overtake the business.

Apple announced its financial third quarter earnings on Tuesday night and reported that iPhone sales had jumped to 41.3m, a slight increase on the same quarter in the previous year.https://goo.gl/images/E1k5yS