Huawei set to ship 200 million cellphones this year
Published : Wednesday, 25 July, 2018
China’s leading smartphone brand, Huawei Technologies, is set to ship 200 million cellphones this year. These units will ship to both international and domestic markets and will bring the company to within striking distance of Apple as the second-largest global merchant behind Samsung.Richard Yu Chengdong, Huawei’s mobile segment chief, revealed on Wednesday that as at July 18, 2018, Huawei shipped 100 million phones, which is the fastest pace at which handsets have been shipped by the company in years.
During a new product launch, Yu explained that this target was previously reached in December, October and September respectively in the preceding 3 years. As it only took slightly more than six months to reach the target this year, Huawei hopes to reach the 200 million mark by the end of 2018.
Huawei adds the number of Huawei and Honor-branded phones to calculate global mobile shipment figures. The company has managed to maintain fast growth despite industry shipments declining this year. Its main competitors, Apple and Samsung, have reported a decline in shipments of 2.8% and 2.4% respectively in Q1 of this year. An IDC research note that was released in May reported that Huawei shipped 39.3 million phones during Q1, bringing it closer to Apple’s 52.2 million units shipped in the same period.
The Huawei and Honor (Huawei’s budget phone) brands have both started to penetrate the Southeast Asian markets, with the biggest gains achieved in India. Zaker Li, IHS Markit’s senior industry analyst, reported that the brands increased sales in the region in Q2.
Li explained that as the second half of the year is traditionally the peak season for smartphone sales, Huawei should experience no difficulty in exceeding 200 million phone shipments, especially since half of that has already been achieved. Major brands also release new phones during this time.
Huawei has also announced that it will release the Mate series in Q3. This is its next generation flagship. IDC research data shows that Apple shipped 215.8 million handsets last year, compared to Huawei’s 153.1 million and Samsung’s 317.3 million.
Hong Kong-based Counterpoint reported that during June and July last year, Huawei briefly sold more units than Apple to capture second spot in global smartphone shipments. This occurred when the market was relatively quiet before new phones were launched in September and October. Apple did however regain its position in September when it launched the new iPhone models.
Huawei has been aiming for the second spot in global smartphone sales for a long time and Yu has mentioned this a number of times in recent years.
When it became apparent that Huawei was set to become a major phone vendor with the launch of its P series phones in 2013, Yu already mentioned that they wanted to beat Apple and Samsung in global phone shipments over 3 and 5 years respectively.
Huawei revealed their turbocharged graphics processing technology in June. With it, they aim to pull ahead of other Android-based phones in the mobile gaming arena. The GPU Turbo technology can lower energy consumption by 30% and increase graphics processing efficiency by 60%. This will give it an edge over its competitors, including the iPhone X, in mobile gaming.
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