Huawei could become world's number one smartphone vendor next year

The company only started making mobile phones in 2004, when Nokia was already the booming market’s dominant leader, followed by Motorola and Samsung, today’s heavyweight industry champion. But said 2018 champ may have something to worry about not just in the profitability department, as Huawei’s shipment numbers are growing at a crazy pace again.

Big in China, the local hero got bigger and bigger across major European markets as well in recent years, suffering somewhat of a setback in 2017, when Huawei’s volume was only 10 percent higher than 2016’s total.

Things are back on track now, and Huawei even surged past Apple in Q2’s global smartphone sales report. Overall, the company shipped 95 million smartphones during this year’s first six months, expecting to hit a tally of more than 200 million units for the whole of 2018.

That would represent a massive year-on-year hike of 31 percent, defying the industry’s general state of sluggishness, as well as Samsung and Apple’s increasing difficulties of maintaining healthy growth trends.

According to Huawei consumer business group CEO Richard Yu, “it’s no question that we become the No.2 next year.” Believe it or not, the company also thinks the number one spot is within reach, although a lot can still happen between now and the end of 2019. Besides, Huawei isn’t saying it will definitely become the world’s number one smartphone vendor by Q4 of next year.

It’s simply “possible” that will happen, which was fairly easy to anticipate based on recent trends and power shifts in the industry.

source: Reuters