Huawei Overtakes Samsung and Apple as World’s Largest Smartphone Maker in April

As the global market supply chain get severely affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese multinational technology company, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd (SHE: 002502) is boasting to have overtaken other leading smartphone makers globally including Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KRX: 005930) and Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) as the world’s largest smartphone maker in April.

According to Counterpoint Research, Huawei managed to control 19% of the global smartphone market share while Samsung managed 17% in the same period. This comes amidst supremacy friction between the United States and China in controlling global leading technologies especially in 5G network coverage in Europe and other parts of the world.

Besides, the Huawei Technologies was banned in the United States by the Trump administration through an executive order signed on May 15. The order directed that telecom equipment and services from foreign companies cannot be imported in the U.S. In addition, Google went ahead to bar the Chinese company from accessing its services leading to the Android License revoked.

Huawei Technologies vs Apple and Samsung

At the beginning of the year, the UK government confirmed that Huawei will be given the contract on the country’s 5G network development. However, following the U.S. additional sanctions against the Chinese company, the UK government decided to review the contract afresh presumably to keep its relationship with the west firm.

Huawei’s huge market cannot be ignored as the Asian market, African, Europe, and also other parts of the world are significantly large. During the first three months of 2020, the company was ranked second after Samsung after shipping 8 million 5G smartphones. This reciprocated to a total of 33.2 percent with Samsung leading with 34.4%.

America’s high-tech smartphone maker Apple, on the other hand, lags in rolling out its 5G network supported devices. According to Apple, it is anticipating to release its iPhone 12 series later this year or early this year, this puts Huawei and Samsung miles ahead in controlling the larger global market excluding the United States, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

If Huawei’s marketing strategy can grab the opportunity at hand and continue controlling the smartphone industry, it might be difficult for the rest of the companies to catch up during post-COVID recoveries.

However, due to the high competition in the smartphone industry and the hidden card by Apple on its next-generation devices, Huawei’s success might be short-lived if the market changes in the future.