Apple’s Smartphone Share Declines, Huawei’s Skyrockets Despite US Ban

Data provided by Gartner for the third quarter of the year reveals that the smartphone market decline 0.4% as compared to the same period a year ago, with the company explaining that the demand remained weak pretty much because customers “became more concerned about getting value for money.”

Specifically, Samsung remains the leading brand worldwide with more than 79 million phones sold during the quarter, which secures a market share of 20.4%, up from 18.9% the same quarter in 2018.

Huawei, on the other hand, is the company that took everyone by surprise. Despite the ban in the United States, which doesn’t allow the company to use products developed by American firms, including Android and Windows, on new devices, Huawei recorded an increase of more than 10 million units sold during the quarter.

Only sky is the limit for Huawei

Huawei is now the second-placed phone maker in the charts with a share of 17%, up from 13.4% in Q3 2018.

“Huawei was the only one of the top-five global smartphone vendors to achieve double-digit growth in smartphone sales in the third quarter of 2019,” Gartner explains. “Huawei’s performance in China was the key driver of its global smartphone sales growth. It sold 40.5 million smartphones in China and increased its share of the country’s market by almost 15 percentage points.”

Apple is now the third company in the charts with 10.5% market share and 40 million units sold. This is down from 11.8 percent share and 145.7 million iPhones sold in Q3 2018.

“For the majority of smartphone users, desire has shifted away from owning the least expensive smartphone. Today’s smartphone user is opting for midtier smartphones over premium-tier ones because they offer better value for money,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner. “In addition, while waiting for 5G network coverage to increase to more countries, smartphone users are delaying their purchase decisions until 2020.”

Gartner says the holiday season is likely to boost smartphone sales, especially in the case of companies like Samsung and Google which are expected to announce major discounts and promotions for their latest models.