Huawei Overtakes Apple as China's largest Smartphone Brand

BEIJING, October 19 (TMTPost)— More and more signs suggested Apple’s reign as the best-selling smartphone brand in China is coming to an end as Huawei Technologies Ltd launched its popular flagship phone

Credit：Visual China

In the week ended October 8, or the 40th week of the year, Huawei took the first place with a 19.4% of market share by sales in China, according to BCI, a Chinese consulting firm focusing on research in the communications industry. The performance showcased Huawei has made great strides since inception of Mate 60 series. The tech giant’s recent market share rose almost 10 percentage points from the week prior to new flagship’s launch. BCI estimated sales of Huawei mobiles during the past four weeks—from the 37th to the 40th week had the year-over-year (YoY) increase of 91%, 46%, 83% and 95%, respectively.

China’s smartphone market saw improvement in sales, fuelled by intensified launches, and Huawei is the vendor with the strongest momentum since September, said China Securities Co., Ltd. (CSC) in its latest note. With the blockbuster of Mate 60 series, Huawei will maintain robust sales growth of smartphone in the rest of the year as it improves delivery, the brokerage firm expected. It said the Mate 60 could also prompt Huawei to set higher sales target next year.

The Wall Street has declared Huawei became the winner in the improving Chinese smartphone market earlier this week. Sales of iPhone 15 in China are 4.5% lower than the iPhone 14 over their first 17 days after release, Counterpoint Research estimated. Smartphone sales in China were mainly driven by high double-digit growth in Android sales led by Huawei, Xiaomi and Honor devices, while Apple’s iPhone sales recorded a negative YoY growth since the iPhone 15 launched, resulting in Huawei’s dethroning as the market leader in China, Jefferies analysts said at a report on Monday.

Huawei was reported last month to raise shipment target in the second half of the year for Mate 60 by 20% as sales of the flagship were stronger than the company’s expectation, and could deliver at least 40 million units of new smartphone this year. Recent Chinese reports said Huawei aims to sell much more smartphones next year.

Huawei raised the delivery target for 2024 to a range of 60 million to 70 million units, more than doubling its annual delivery of 30 million units in 2022, Chinese state-backed newspaper Securities Daily cited people close to the company last week. The new target is same as Jiemian recently reported. The Chinese digital news media outlet said Huawei set an annual smartphone delivery target between 60 million units and 70 million units for the year 2024. The Shenzhen-based company has placed enough additional orders to its suppliers to ensure it meet the target, the report’s sources said.

The delivery volume of 60 million units is roughly in line with the expectation of Ming Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities who was well known as the most accurate Apple analyst in the world. Kuo anticipated about a month earlier that Huawei’s mobile delivery in 2023 will increase about 65% from last year to 38 million units, driven by demand for Mate 60 Plus, and its delivery in 2024 is expected to be no less than 60 million.