Well, Huawei overtook Apple to become the second-biggest smartphone brand in 2019. While Huawei was eying for the top spot, things didn’t go that well for the Chinese firm. Following the trade ban imposed by the US government, Huawei’s plan to beat Samsung didn’t really take off. We were yet to see how it would affect the global ranking between the smartphone brands. The overall standings for the 2019 year are already out. Let’s dive deeper into the figures and numbers to find which smartphone brands celebrated the highest sales volume in 2019.
Biggest smartphone brands in 2019!
Samsung: Still the King of Smartphone World
Independent results from Strategy Analytics, Counterpoint Research and Canalys reveal Huawei has climbed up to the number two spot despite facing ban from the US. Throughout the year, Huawei sold about 240 million phones which is higher than Apple’s statistics by about 40 million. As of now, Samsung still holds the crown of the biggest smartphone brand in the world. Bettering its last year’s performance, it shipped out about 298.1 million smartphones worldwide.
The unprecedented growth of Huawei
Despite the ban, Huawei continues to grow as a smartphone market and that too by a great margin over the last year. Yes, you heard it right- Huawei’s global smartphone sales in 2019 grew by a whopping 17.6%. This has resulted in the growth of Huawei’s global market share from 14.8% in 2018 to around 17% in 2019.
That is an unprecedented growth considering the fact that the overall smartphone market has declined in the same duration. Xiaomi ranks second on the Annual growth chart with a 4% growth. Compare that to Huawei’s number, you would know how significant Huawei’s growth is. Compared to Huawei, Samsung only managed 2% growth while Apple saw a decrease in sales by about 7%.
Read about Huawei’s record revenue amidst the trade ban
Huawei’s headache
Looking at the annual growth, you would think Huawei has no reason to worry about but that is far from the actual case. Huawei has a lot to worry about. According to the report by Counterpoint Research, only 40% of Huawei’s total shipments were outside of China. While Huawei enjoys success in its home country, people outside China are now shifting to other alternatives. This is quite evident by the drip in sales in the Q4 of 2019.
Apple enjoys the holiday sales
Apple lost to both Samsung and Huawei in the run for the biggest smartphone brand. It couldn’t even match its 2018 sales figures. But there is a silver lining as well- Apple managed to top the Q4 smartphone sales for the third year in a row. It managed to sell 78.4 million smartphones in the Holiday period. While Samsung and Huawei experienced drip in sales in the last quarter, Apple’s global shipment grew in the same period. If only the Q4 sales were considered, Apple would have topped the other two smartphone brands in the annual growth chart with a growth of 9%. However, it would still fall behind Xiaomi which saw a 23% sales boost in Q4 of 2019 in comparison to Q4 of 2018.
So, those were the biggest smartphone brands in 2019. What do you think 2020 has in store for us? Comment down below!
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