The Chinese smartphone maker Huawei has taken over Apple in worldwide sales of smartphones. According to Gartner, in the second quarter of 2018, Huawei surpassed Apple to secure the second worldwide smartphone vendor position for the first time ever. While Samsung retains the first place, the Apple moved into the third spot. Overall, sales of smartphones to end users grew 2 percent in the second quarter of 2018 to reach 374 million units.
According to Gartner, Huawei’s smartphone sales grew 38.6 percent in the second quarter of 2018. “Huawei continues to bring innovative features into its smartphones and expand its smartphone portfolio to cover larger consumer segments,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. “Its investment into channels, brand building and positioning of the Honor devices helped drive sales. Huawei is shipping its Honor smartphones into 70 markets worldwide and is emerging as Huawei’s key growth driver.”
Samsung maintained the top global smartphone vendor spot, declining 12.7 percent in the second quarter of 2018. “Samsung faces slowing global smartphone demand and ever-growing competition from Chinese manufacturers,” said Gupta. “The slowing demand for its flagship smartphones left Samsung with lower profitability. It now expects the Note 9 smartphone to revive growth.”
| Vendor | 2Q18 Units | 2Q18 Market Share (%) | 2Q17 Units | 2Q17 Market Share (%) |
| Samsung | 72,336.4 | 19.3 | 82,855.3 | 22.6 |
| Huawei | 49,846.5 | 13.3 | 35,964.3 | 9.8 |
| Apple | 44,715.1 | 11.9 | 44,314.8 | 12.1 |
| Xiaomi | 32,825.5 | 8.8 | 21,178.5 | 5.8 |
| OPPO | 28,511.1 | 7.6 | 26,092.5 | 7.1 |
| Others | 146,096.1 | 39.0 | 156,190.8 | 42.6 |
| Total | 374,330.6 | 100.0 | 366,596.1 | 100.0 |
Source: Gartner (August 2018)
Apple’s performance was flat in the second quarter of 2018 (0.9 percent growth). “Minimal incremental value in Apple’s current-generation flagship iPhones led to slower growth in the second quarter of 2018,” said Gupta. “Demand for the iPhone X has started to slow down much earlier than when other new models were introduced.”
“Growing competition from Chinese brands and consumers’ greater expectations for phone value is putting immense pressure on Apple to deliver enhanced value on their premium iPhones to foster growth,” added Gupta.
Xiaomi’s focus on expanding its portfolio and adopting a unified retail model by integrating offline and online retail are driving growth in a slowing global smartphone market. This helped Xiaomi secure the fourth spot in the global smartphone market in the second quarter of 2018.
| Operating System | 2Q18 Units | 2Q18 Market Share (%) | 2Q17 Units | 2Q17 Market Share (%) |
| Android | 329,503.4 | 88.0 | 321,848.2 | 87.8 |
| iOS | 44,715.1 | 11.9 | 44,314.8 | 12.1 |
| Other OS | 112.1 | 0.0 | 433.1 | 0.1 |
| Total | 374,330.6 | 100.0 | 366,596.1 | 100.0 |
Source: Gartner (August 2018)
In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Google’s Android further extended its lead over Apple’s iOS in the second quarter of 2018, securing 88 percent market share to 11.9 percent share for iOS.
