Huawei captures nearly half the smartphone market in China, where a lack of Google apps doesn’t matter
- Huawei has 46 per cent of China’s smartphone market, more than Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi combined
- Huawei is benefiting from 5G adoption, but Apple’s iPhone 11 and iPhone SE got a bigger sales bump without 5G
Chinese smartphone giant Huawei is having a tough time outside China. But back home, it’s thriving.
It comes as many users around the world are shunning Huawei phones because they no long include Google apps since the company was placed on a US blacklist.
“China has become the most important market for Huawei as its overseas shipments saw a sharp decline after it lost the ability to use [Google Mobile Services] in its latest smartphones,” Counterpoint analyst Flora Tang said in the report.
But Huawei’s gain means pain for its rivals. Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi saw smartphone sales decline 29 per cent, 31 per cent and 35 per cent respectively. This comes as the country’s smartphone market faces an overall slowdown, declining 17 per cent compared with the second quarter last year, Counterpoint data shows.
There is a silver lining, though. Sales got a slight bump in the second quarter over the first quarter, suggesting the market has started to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Huawei is also benefiting from the fact that Chinese consumers are buying more 5G smartphones. Huawei has 60 per cent of the 5G handset market in China, where consumers are buying more 5G phones than anywhere else in the world. A third of all smartphones sold in China in the second quarter were 5G-enabled, according to Counterpoint.
There was one notable exception to the 5G trend. Apple’s sales growth in China was more than double that of Huawei in the second quarter, growing 32 per cent year over year, according to Counterpoint. This is thanks to the popularity of the iPhone 11 series and the new budget-friendly iPhone SE, neither of which support 5G.
