Huawei Kicks Cupertino In The Apples, Becomes Second Largest Smartphone Brand In The World

Counterpoint Research has issued a report that looks at the global smartphone market and the biggest companies in that market. According to the firm's latest research from its Counterpoint Market Pulse for July 2017, Huawei passed Apple in global smartphone sales consistently for both June and July. Sales numbers for Huawei are also reportedly looking "strong" for August as well.

Discussing this key competitive development, Counterpoint Research Director Peter Richardson, notes, "This is a significant milestone for Huawei, the largest Chinese smartphone brand with a growing global presence. It speaks volumes for this primarily network infrastructure vendor on how far it has grown in the consumer mobile handset space in the last three to four years. The global scale Huawei has been able to achieve can be attributed to its consistent investment in R&D and manufacturing, coupled with aggressive marketing and sales channel expansion." 

Counterpoint says that Huawei's dominance over Apple could be short lived with the iPhone X (or iPhone 8 depending on what rumor you believe), which is due to arrive soon. Smartphone buyers tend to stop buying iPhones when the rumors point to a new model coming soon; this phenomenon is something Apple has lambasted leaksters for in the past. Rumors of an iPhone refresh have certainly been swirling heavily in the last several months, helping Huawei to overtake Apple in global sales. You can't lay all Huawei's success at the feet of iPhone rumors hurting sales at Apple; Huawei is huge in its home country of China, which also happens to be one of the hottest smartphone markets in the world. 

Richardson adds, "However, a weak presence in the South Asian, Indian and North American markets limits Huawei’s potential in the near-to mid-term to take a sustainable second place position behind Samsung. Huawei is over-dependent on its home market China where it enjoys the leadership position and operator-centric markets in Europe, Latin America and Middle East."

The report calls out the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus as the best selling smartphone models in the world. The third and fourth spots in rankings went to the OPPO R11 and OPPO A57 devices. The Galaxy S8 was next, followed by the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X and Galaxy S8+. Huawei lacks a smartphone in the top ten best sellers, analysts blame that on lots of SKUs and the lack of a "hero" device . Huawei certainly has one of the strangest smartphones in the world, including its Kentucky Fried Chicken special edition device.