by
N. Peter Kramer
The Chinese telecom giant Huawei is now the second largest vendor of smartphones worldwide. In the second trimester of 2018 it has overtaken US based Apple. In this period Huawei’s share of the global market was 15,8%, compared to Apple’s 12,1%.
Yet with 20,9% , South Korea’s Samsung remains market leader.
Comparing these results with the same period in 2017 the unstoppable growth of Huawei in the global smartphone market becomes clear. It sales were up from 11% to 15.8% (nearly 5%!), Apple from 11,8% to 12,1% whilst Samsung lost 2% market share, from 22,9% to 20,9%.
In 1987 the former engineer of the Chinese army, Ren Zhengfei, founded Huawei. He started with only a few thousands of dollars, concentrating on telecom technologies.
Nowadays the company is a world leader and a recognised pioneer of 5G. In 2003 Huawei launched a new division for mobile phones with considerable success, first in China and later elsewhere in Asia.
Three years ago, Huawei decided to take the mobile phones global. A considerable challenge as the name was still unknown to the general public outside Asia. But by mid-2018, Huawei is outdoing Apple and seriously challenging Samsung. It is not for nothing that Mr Zhengfei once called his company ‘a tenacious wolf’ that never let go its prey.
According to the French quality daily Le Figaro, Tarun Pathak, an independent expert at Counterpoint, said: ‘These last years an enormous improvement of the image and the recognition of the Huawei brand has taken place. In a very smart way they differentiated and positioned their products across the whole spectrum of models and prices’.
However, the growth of Huawei has a greater importance. It signifies a new generation of mobile phone producers. The year 2010 marked a first change when Apple, Samsung and LG took over from Sony, Ericsson, … the past glories of Motorola, BlackBerry and Nokia being long gone.
But this time, in 2018, the new wave comes from China. And not only Huawei who sold 158 million mobile phones in 2017; two more new Chinese brands are impressing the market, Oppo (110 million mobiles sold in 2017) and Xiaomi (105 million). For the moment, these two are active in the Asian market only, but they are expected to enter the western part of the world soon.
In the spring of this year, Huawei chose Antoine Griezmann to be the celebrity promotor of its new smartphone flagship le P20Pro. It was a successful bet. Griezmann became world champion with his French team and was chosen as one of the best players of the tournament.
With the Huawei P20Pro being heralded as one of the best smartphones on the market at the moment, it seems an unbeatable combination.
By: N. Peter Kramer
