Huawei Takes #2 Smartphone Manufacturer Spot in 1H18
by Andrei Frumusanu on August 3, 2018 6:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- Mobile
Huawei has released its business results for the first half of 2018, and has posted new record sales figures of 95+ million units.
Most importantly, the company has now surpassed Apple in terms of smartphone shipments and has been able advance to the n°2 positioning with a global market share of 15.8% (It’s to be noted that we’re talking about unit shipments and not revenue).
Looking back, it’s now been 3 years since we had the opportunity to go to Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen and we had been presented the company’s business goals for the future. Back then the company very much stated that its medium-term strategy was to become the number two vendor worldwide. With today’s results, this marks an important point for the Chinese vendor as its efforts over the past couple of years have paid off.
Ever since my first coverage of the company 4 years ago I noted that there was great potential: It was evident that Huawei had great ambitions and product ethic, as it was able to recognize the faults in its products and progressively solve them over time and generations, very quickly iterating and improved its offerings. The threat to the competition as well as the disruption to the competitive landscape over the years very much materialised as a real thing, and today Huawei can be very much considered one of the leading smartphone vendors, not just in unit sales, but also in overall product quality.
It’s to be noted that Huawei achieved this while essentially failing to officially enter the US market. Earlier this year when talking to Huawei about the set-back in the US, the pragmatic response was is simply that the company is just going to have to focus on improving its products until there’s sufficient consumer demand to overcome other entry-barriers.
Business performance highlights
- HUAWEI P20 Series: Fusing art and technology, the P20 Series has been very well received among the fashion-forward consumers. The global shipments of the HUAWEI P20 Series surpassed 9 million units;
- HUAWEI Mate 10 Series: The latest HUAWEI Mate Series set the trend for mobile AI and strengthened the company’s position in the high-end market with global shipments of over 10 million units;
- HUAWEI nova Series: Globally, the number of nova smartphone users exceeded 50 million, contributing to growth of the overall mid-range smartphone market. Total shipments of the nova Series increased by 60 percent year-over-year.
- Huawei wearables achieved a remarkable 147 percent increase year-over-year;
- Retail business has grown and now Huawei operates over 53,000 Huawei stores and 3,500 Huawei Experience Stores globally. The company plans to bolster its retail network by adding another 10,000 retail stores and 700 Experience Stores around the world before the end of 2018.
The end of the year will be very interesting for Huawei mobile products as I’m expecting the next generation SoC to include ARM’s newest Cortex A76 cores as well as it being manufactured on TSMC’s new 7nm process, which after the last 2 generations of “unsynchronized” technology and product release scheduled will finally fall back into place and put the next designs in a very good competitive position that I’m looking forward to.
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s.yu - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
That doesn't disprove their assumptions. Did you read Anandtech's own review yet? Did you notice that in the daylight shots some 40MP samples were notably sharper than the competition's 12MPs (though I bet the Pixel Camera ported to a decent bayer 20MP could surpass it) but some completely tanked and failed to even retain more detail than 12MP?The model's performance is pretty unstable even on recent firmware and it's possible that the portrait samples were albeit less than optimal, still normal behavior. And I state again that even P20P's optimal performance in 10MP can't match many decent 12MPs, just go examine the sample comparisons lying around.
s.yu - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
Oops, correction: I was examining the P20P samples from the 1+6 review and noticed the great variation between 40MP shots, but if anything it's even more recent and firmware is no excuse. I remember the usual artifacts like moire from the P20P review though.damianrobertjones - Saturday, August 4, 2018 - link
You know what, you're probably right. I read many reviews, watched YouTube vids and, seeing as the Mate 10 pro hasn't experienced ONE issue, I still went ahead and bought the p20.I don't want Apple's walled garden and don't want to have issues with Samsung. Done.
s.yu - Monday, August 6, 2018 - link
I'm all for informed decisions. If you've done your research and could tell what you're actually getting through the deceptive marketing, that's fine. It's just that Huawei's always either cleverly or blatantly misleading with their advertisements and never hesitate to lie about their products, also their rise is closely tied to Chinese nationalism. This lead me to form a very negative opinion about this company.Currently I'm still with Samsung, I don't see any issue with the Note 8 in particular and won't be upgrading in some time, but even if I'm forced to choose among Chinese offerings right this second, I'd buy Vivo NEX or something. The decent camera seems suitable to my usage habits shooting with LR mobile HDR DNG (means I count on a decent CMOS, the camera software hardly matters), the discrete DAC could benefit my CIEMs, the design's subtle but nice and practical with high screen-to-body ratio and no notch, it's also priced quite competitively.
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
The notch doesn't bother me as I don't even notice that it's there. But... It's a shame that the P20 doesn't put as much effort into recording video as it does taking pictures. That's a big negative but i knew that before buying.Barilla - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link
I just wish they focused more on battery optimization. I own Mate 10 Pro currently and I like it a lot, but with a 4000mAh battery it should last longer than it does.damianrobertjones - Saturday, August 4, 2018 - link
According to the reviews it lasts for a very long time. But, saying that, what you do with it counts towards that battery life.webdoctors - Friday, August 3, 2018 - link
This isn't surprising, outside of the USA ppl aren't tied to phone contracts and subsidized phone prices. Phones are commodities that are just good enough and so price is the differentiator and that's where they surpass LG/Samsung/Sony/Motorola.Once North America uses the same frequencies as the rest of the planet they'll be even fewer reasons to stick to the QCOM based chips.
StevoLincolnite - Saturday, August 4, 2018 - link
Just goes to show the USA's importance as a market is beginning to wane.Good work Huawei.
Hrel - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
I'm surprised you guys are even still covering them, considering their potential federal legal violations.