China’s smartphone giant Huawei has surpassed Apple’s global smartphone sales for the first time in June and July to become the world’s second-biggest smartphone maker behind Samsung, according to a report from Counterpoint Research. Although Apple is likely to recover the second spot with the imminent release of a new range of iPhones, the report described the development as a significant milestone, with Huawei breaking the duopoly enjoyed by Samsung and Apple for the past five years.
The report adds that the global scale Huawei has been able to achieve can be attributed to its consistent investment in R&D and manufacturing, coupled with aggressive marketing and sales channel expansion. However, its relatively weak presence in the South Asian, Indian and North American markets could still limit Huawei’s potential to the near-to-mid-term to take a sustainable second place position behind Samsung.
Surprisingly, even though it has surpassed Apple in global sales, none of Huawei’s models appear on Counterpoint’s Top 10 smartphones list, which is topped by the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, followed by Oppo’s R11 and A57, Samsung’s Galaxy S8, Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 4X and Samsung’s Galaxy S8 Plus.