Huawei Beats Apple to Become the Second-biggest Smartphone Maker 

Huawei Consumer Business Group shipped more than 95 million smartphone units in the first half of 2018. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), Huawei overtook Apple to become the world’s second-largest smartphone seller behind Samsung, the first time in seven years that any contender has managed to split the top two.

Samsung remained the market leader with a 20.9 per cent market share after shipping out 71.5 million devices for the quarter, according to IDC data. That said, the South Korean tech giant saw a 10.4 per cent annual decline in its smartphone shipments and will likely face difficulties in its mobile business in the coming quarters.

IDC preliminary data further revealed that Huawei shipped about 54.2 million handsets for the quarter, registering a 40.9 per cent on-year growth. Meanwhile, Apple shipped about 41.3 million units for 0.7 per cent growth against the comparable year-ago period.

Huawei’s global market share now stands at 15.8 per cent. Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said, “The past six months have been incredible for Huawei CBG, marked by the robust growth of our business across all markets and product lines. Our success is owed to our commitment to innovation and, most importantly, our customers. Moving forward, Huawei will remain focused on continually improving our offerings with an emphasis on on-device AI, cloud and the wider Huawei ecosystem.”